It's Your Que To Win

On Saturday February 23, 2013, the brothers of Iota Phi Theta hosted their annual stroll-off competition. The event’s location was at the ARMAH room in the Lane Center. All of the participants included the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated, Omega Psi Phi fraternity incorporated, Phi Beta Sigma fraternity incorporated, and the hosts themselves, Iota Phi Theta fraternity incorporated.

All of these five fraternities are part of an organization called the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), which has a total of nine Greek fraternities and sororities. The nine Greek organizations in the NPHC are known as the “Divine Nine”. It was initially formed for African Americans who wanted to join Greek life but could not because of their skin color. So they decided to form their own Greek letter organizations. The first organization that was formed was Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, which was formed in 1906; following them was Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority 1908; Kappa Alpha Psi in 1911; Omega Psi Phi fraternity also in 1911; Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 1913; Phi Beta Sigma fraternity in 1914; Zeta Phi Beta sorority in 1920; Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in 1922; and Iota Phi Theta sorority in 1963.

A stroll-off is a competition in which each fraternity would do a kind of dance routine as a group, and would be adjudicated on how well or poorly they executed the choreography. Factors that are included in the judging are creativity, concise movements, and timeliness of the overall routine. These competitions are often in the order of when the fraternities and sororities were founded. This means that the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha were the first to perform.

The brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha came out in black sweaters with their Greek letters sewed in with gold. They came out with the song they are known for strolling with, “Knuck if you Buck” by Crime Mob. I asked one of the students in the congregation how he thought they did and he responded by saying “that they did not have any energy in their routine”. The DJ also had a part to do in this as there were several pauses in the music while the fraternity was still performing.

Up next were the brothers of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, who are known as the “Ques”. They came out with tank tops and their usual army fatigue shorts. They had a Latin style routine with one of the brothers wearing a sombrero and also doing the salsa to a Latin beat. This got the crowd very engaged and people were already deeming them the winners of the whole competition.

The brothers of Phi Beta Sigma were next. They had on cardigan sweaters with black slacks, white shirts, and black ties. They started their stroll to the song “Pop That” by French Montana. Their routine was very well-executed with very little to know flaws.

Iota Phi Theta fraternity incorporated was the last to go. They encouraged some interaction from the crowd by going up to a random female on the front row and performing a slight seduction on them.

Followed by the stroll-off competition was the after-party, where the winners were to be announced. As most people assumed already, the brothers of Omega Psi Phi fraternity incorporated won the competition.