Three University of Wisconsin-Whitewater fraternities decided to hold a basketball tournament for a good cause Saturday, April 9 inside the Willaims Center. The tournament is the first of its kind here on campus, and the idea was spawned from an earlier intramural basketball game between Sigma Tau Gamma and Phi Delta Theta. It was a competitive game, and the teams mutually realized they could take that competitiveness a step further. 

Despite the willingness on both sides, there was still a lot to be done to set up that tournament-like competition for several frats to compete in.

“It was a battle setting this thing up…I think the hardest thing was trying to get sponsors and all of the teams involved. We already knew we wanted to do it together, but getting the space and sponsors was pretty tough, and we just didn’t have enough time to really get it out to the public. So I don’t think it’s the outcome we wanted, but we just learned more for next year,” said Sigma Tau Gamma member Collin Voyer. 

While the proceeds went to a good cause, the Whitewater Food Bank, the organizing of this tournament revealed something unfortunately dark amongst the frat community here on campus. The anonymous messaging app Yik Yak has been a platform used to aim disparaging comments towards other fraternities. 

“It’s a very big problem, especially in the Greek community, with slander and things like that. So we just kinda wanted to put this together to do what we can to try and lay that to rest. Because, we all go here, we’re all working towards the same thing. There shouldn’t be any slander like that going around,” said philanthropy chair of Phi Delta Theta Brandon Castro. “And planning it not around other fraternities’ events. We originally wanted four teams, but just had to work with what we had. Events like initiations and formals are not really something you change on the fly.” 

Despite the success of organizing sponsors for each team, making uniforms, a half court shot and a raffle all within short notice, the organizers were still hard on themselves to keep pushing to make this even better in the future.

“There’s definitely a lot more planning that needs to go into it next time. We got to get the word out there sooner,” said Voyer. “We’re just trying to show that ‘hey we’re all part of chapters, we’re all brothers here, we want to do something that shows that we’re not just divided and can achieve a common goal. We’re here to help the community and get to know brothers, and become better people. So, you can’t do that if we’re fighting with everyone.” 

The final of the tournament ended in a 59-51 victory for Phi Delta Theta over Sigma Tau Gamma. Phi Chi Epsilon came in third place. This inaugural tournament now offers a fun opportunity for future expansion into a larger field with more fraternities and the ability to generate even more funds for a good cause. 

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Phi Delta and Sigma Tau fight off against each other in a basketball game.