I Was Naked in Public A Lot in College

It was the first day or so after I moved into the Cumberland Hall dorm at the University of Maryland when I started hearing about guys from one of the nearby dorms, maybe Chestertown Hall, who would streak through the quad.

I figured it was some tradition that carried over from the 1970s but wasn’t actually happening anymore. And I don’t remember any dorm streaking while I was living in Cumberland.

But while I was pledging, there was one night when we had to go to the Testudo statue in front of McKeldin Library, and all of us had to strip naked, pose around the giant Terrapin, and sit all over it.

After taking a picture of the undressed pledge class around Testudo, we looked to the pile of our clothes, and they were gone. We had to run naked back to the fraternity house to get our clothes.

Sorry to the students who would rub Testudo’s nose for good luck before an exam. There were lots of naked guys on there before the rub.

Then, during Hell Week, we went to the Sigma Kappa sorority, where we had to wear Speedos under our clothes as part of a pledge activity. After we arrived, we were ushered into their TV room and told to take off all our clothes and run around the sorority house — somehow, this was a sanctioned event between our frat and the sorority.

Again, as we returned to the TV room, our clothes were all gone. Another naked run from the sorority back to our house. We had to run across Route 1 and past all of the bar-goers on the way back.

Naked Stuff After Becoming a Brother

I didn’t really have a choice about stripping naked when I was a pledge. Those were times when we had to do it as part of the pledge class. It was sort of funny and ridiculous, and after a while we just had no shame.

But I was also in my birthday suit in public a number of times after I became a brother in Pi Kappa Alpha (PiKA).

There was a tradition where anytime one of our brothers got lavaliered (a little gold pendant with our fraternity letters on it) or pinned (a pin with our fraternity crest) to a girlfriend, the pledges would kidnap us and tie us naked to the big anchor in front of the Delta Gamma sorority.

I was on that anchor a few times, since I gave lavaliers to two girlfriends and also a pin to one of them. Each time I got tied up, I had to wait for my girlfriend to come and untie me.

Fortunately, this was long before everyone had a camera phone in their pocket, so I don’t think there is any photographic evidence of it.

However, another tradition we had was that pledges would kidnap the fraternity President-elect, and I was that guy for fall 1992. After I was kidnapped and made to drink silly amounts of alcohol, I ended up back in my room in the frat house in nothing but boxers.

I got up to go pee at some point and decided to take a seat because of my booze fatigue, and I was oblivious to a camera in my face as I settled onto the throne. While I was wearing nothing at that point, I ended up angled in a way that the picture was rated PG.

In 1992, I also started up a Greek life newspaper called the Greek Times, and one of the cover photos was a naked brother of mine who had just been crowned the Alpha Phi Silver Sweetheart, and a bunch of brothers stripped him down and brought him to the sorority.

I am not sure whether using this picture on the cover was the reason this was my second-to-last issue of the newspaper (it was funded by the Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council), but I thought it might be a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography, so I went with it.

It was a fun time while it lasted, but I’ve been happy to navigate the world with clothes on since those days.

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