A Greek Comedy/Tragedy in 3 Parts:

This is the First in a Series of Great Performances. You may not see any of it in the PSU record books, but it is a trio of races as worthy of mention as any I have encountered. Coach Groves had a modicum of rules, but high on the list were 1. Don't Join a Fraternity and 2. Don't run extra races during the school year.
Don Ziter took on the first his sophomore year and Sigma Pi was the better for it. He weathered the storm of Coach's ire for the next two years and then decided to double down. Would he run one "extra" race for his fraternity brothers? How about two? No, three seems more like it, or at least did in 1978-1981 to a young, possibly adult-beverage-addled team member.

As shown in the photo, Don ran the Delta Chi Marathon relay for Sigma Pi. (Gary and Steve Black were also forced into it by TEP, as the other brothers were too busy firing pistols at the gas lines in the basement!). When his well-coifed visage appeared in the Daily Collegian, Coach chewed a hole in his blues and grays each day for a week. That gave Don, a soon-to-be college graduate as it were, a brilliant idea for the Panhellenic 5K. When he won, he refused to give his name. But Coach Groves, a Masters degree-holding, wily veteran of a few years took all of ten minutes to realize who it was when it appeared in the Collegian as "name withheld upon request".

Not to be outdone, Don decided to run the granddaddy of them all "The Phi Psi 500". Todays team members and recent alums won't recognize the significance of this event. But in the day, the Phi Psi 500 was a beer-mile run through the town's adult-beverage houses. Starting in 1988 or so, they started substituting soda at one bar each year until it became a soda-mile (pop-mile for you guys from Pittsburgh). At that point, who cares. But in 1981, Don cared enough and would have won the event if he hadn't spilled the last beer on his shirt (he did drink an extra one and then seemingly won the event, only to be disqualified by his wet shirt.) His reward was the best "boot"("hurl" for those from Pittsburgh) of his life and a thank-you from his Sigma Pi brothers.

By this time Coach had given up on the fraternity thing and didn't even put up a fuss. Thus, the tragedy after the comedy in three parts.

Note: 1. the hair 2. the shorts and 3. the shirt ( Maryland Marathon 1977, where are you Ralph Hoffman?)