Last weekend, Greek Week kicked off and brought back one of its most popular events from the past: the tug of war competition. Tug has not happened since 2019, when the current seniors were freshmen. The two-year hiatus was largely due to COVID-19 precautions.

This competition is no lighthearted tug of war game. GC’s eight sororities and seven fraternities pick out their teams months in advance and create rigorous schedules that include workouts, conditioning and frequent practices.

The competition takes place sitting in a row of ruts that were dug out in the disc golf course at West Campus. Ten members of each team sit down in these ruts and wear cleats to have the best stability in the mud. Each team has their brothers or sisters walking along the line, calling out when to pull, hold or lay back on the rope. The sides then try to work their way backward in the ruts in order to pull the rope far enough in their direction without slipping or losing their footing.

In 2019, the winners of tug were the men of the Kappa Alpha Order and the ladies of Phi Mu. For the 2022 Greek Week tug, Phi Mu won first place once again.

Jessie Deyo is senior Phi Mu who competed as a freshman in 2019. To compete one more time and win again before graduation meant so much to her that she was holding back tears.

“We won four years ago as well, so I was just a freshman then and I was on the same winning lineup against Delta Zeta,” Deyo said. “So it’s nice to be able to carry that out four years later, especially when we didn’t have two years in between to kind of work it out.”

Although Kappa Alpha put up a strong effort, they were not able to win it all once more. Among the fraternities, the 2022 winners of tug were the men of Pi Kappa Alpha.

Grayson True is a senior Pi Kappa Alpha and the only one on his team who took part in the 2019 tug competition. He found this year’s competition to be “shorter,” and he was happy to be able to compete once more.

“It’s honestly amazing,” True said. “This is the one event I look forward to every year.”

Both Deyo and True agree that Greek Week and events like tug serve as great bonding experiences between them and the other members of their Greek organization.

“Sororities can have a tendency to be super big so it’s nice to be able to make that connection smaller through a team,” Deyo explained.

Showing more stoicism, True agreed completely.

The freshmen on campus got to experience their very first Greek Week and witness the revival of tug all at once.

Breeze Boatright is a freshman and a member of Delta Gamma. Although her sorority did not win tug, she enjoyed participating.

“I had a lot of fun,” Boatright said. “After doing it I now know what we can do that’s better and things that we’ll work on, and the same goes for all of the other sports and events.”

Boatright explained that their team had two seniors who competed in 2019, but that the rest of the team was brand new. Inexperience was a recurring theme among the Greek Week participants this year. Due to COVID-19, current sophomores and juniors have only ever experienced a Greek Week with restrictions in place and without tug. Next year, the teams will have much more experience and preparation