One of the least surprising UM news stories ever.
Sig Ep has been a problem...for a long time...
Yes, they were founded at UM in 1949 and used to have a house. Older UM alums will remember that there was a fraternity house on San Amaro right across the street from Mark Light, between the Sigma Chi house and AllSports/AllCanes. Sig Ep lost the house during the 1970s and UM converted it to a university building. In the 1980s/90s, it housed the Dance program, but it has since been torn down (the Newman Alumni Center is now there).
When Sig Ep returned in the 1980s, they were over in the Panhellenic Building, and they were the "Animal House" fraternity. For a while, they were the only fraternity with a membership of more than 100 guys, but they were easily the worst-behaved of all. My fraternity was in the same building and...I saw some stuff...the Sig Ep parties were legendary for horrible drunken behavior, and the cops had to intervene in many of them.
Also, I think this was in the early 1990s, it was a couple of Sig Ep brothers who were selling drugs out of Mahoney-Pearson. It was so bad that the police raided the building without notifying UM Housing, which was unprecedented at the time (the story was that the cops pulled a 21 Jump Street on Sig Ep, sending in an undercover cop to pledge the fraternity).
The only two "good" things to come out of Sig Ep were former Student Government presidents Joe Garcia (also a former US Congressman) and Bill Barzee (local Miami attorney), each of whom were arrested at separate UM home football games in 1986 and 1987 respectively while each was serving as Student Government president. Bill actually got a settlement of around $75K for getting roughed up by the Miami cops during his arrest. I had the singular displeasure of losing out on UM-UF football tickets in 1986 when I was fifth in line for away-game tickets in the University Center breezeway, because Joe Garcia let a bunch of Sig Eps cut in front of me in line to buy the very limited supply of tickets. I ended up having to get one of my Gaytor friends from high school buy me a student ticket instead, but it all ended up working out for the best when we beat the Gaytors in Hogtown for the last time of the annual rivalry game.
Nobody should be surprised by this Sig Ep story. That fraternity has been the worst-of-the-worst for over 35 years. Good riddance.
www.themiamihurricane.com
