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The hard rain was unrelenting. It was that close to twilight time on a Sunday evening that no matter who you are with, you feel alone. The traditional day of rest presents an opportunity to look ahead and reflect on what you have left behind. I am the sole passenger in my car, a solitary silhouette behind the steering wheel. All I have is my music and my thoughts as I follow the dark Nissan Maxima that is in front of me. Through the downpour , I am comforted only by the red taillights from the car in my lead, carrying some friends, as we make our way toward New York from Pennsylvania. Only three hours earlier my parents, and my second mom, Sue Dorado were the lone representatives for me at the Muhlenberg College graduation of 1982. As I listened to Supertramp with their insistence for me to “take the long way home”, I was confused as to where exactly “home” was anymore. My undergraduate days in Allentown were over and with the depressed outlook for Bethlehem Steel my aspirations of starting a career in teaching would not, and could not happen in Allentown. The area’s steady economic decline was punctuated by not one teaching hire in the Lehigh Valley in the last five years. My wipers were going at full tilt clearing the water from my windshield but they could do nothing about the mist surrounding my eyes. I had shown up as a scared Muhlenberg freshman–immature, and lonely– in my grandmother’s old blue convertible. Four years later degree in hand , I drove off campus in the same car, but I was somebody completely different.

As people grow older, their college experience becomes more nostalgic and seemingly more magical. For many, their days as a collegian are described as the best days of their lives. Statistics say that 28% of married people met their spouses while attending college together. Also, close to 50% of young adults who go far away for their formal education end up getting a job and locating near where they did their undergraduate work. Not necessarily by choice it turned out for me that I did not marry a girl who attended Muhlenberg with me, nor did I stay in the Allentown area. This is not to downplay the impact my four years in central Pennsylvania had on me. The local vernacular still resonates. I would make a statement:

“ I got a B- on my Comparative Religion test.”

The Allentown linguistic reply: “Did you, now?”

Subs became hoagies, Philly cheese steaks replaced pizza as my favorite meal, and rolling rock started to taste better than Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was hard to determine who I loathed more the Phillies, Flyers, 76ers, or Eagles. To make matters worse they all had very good teams in the years I attended Muhlenberg. The larger impact for me had to do with the lessons that, over four years, changed who I thought I had been, who I was in the present…. and who I wanted to become.

When I look back on my days at Muhlenberg , the constants of my memory’s visions are pledging a fraternity and my experiences on the basketball team. Those images find their way into my dreams even today. The vulnerability I felt from the competition, and attempts to define myself reverberate through my body still. But it was in the classroom, although not as obviously, I found the beginnings of a person who had not been but was to be. Of all the venues in my young life, the classroom had always left me feeling the most inadequate. At Muhlenberg I was surrounded by an exuberant amount of nerdy, but cut-throat future physicians. I was in class with people where getting A’s was a matter of life or death. The liberal arts program required credits in Intermediate Language, Religion, History, English, Math, and Science. I was nothing more than a cocky bull-shitter. I was okay in any class where there weren’t pre-defined answers required. I had quit on math when letters were thrown in with numbers on the blackboard, and the only thing I knew about science was that half the day was light and the other half dark. But somewhere I found the motivation to do what it took to get through the curriculum. I went to class, took notes, studied and actually read a couple of books. My efforts got me a pile of B’s and C’s. My college transcript would confirm that with the exception of when I did my student teaching I received one A in my four years at Muhlenberg . That was in the very non-scientific or mathematical Bullshitting Class, or as it read on my course schedule , Public Speaking.

Even though it was mid-February, the radio stations in Allentown were already hyping Phillies baseball. It was the first day of spring training and it was also my first day of student teaching at Dieruff High School, one of two high schools located in Allentown. I had come to Muhlenberg as a communications major, fell in love with history in Ed Baldridge’s class, and somewhere in my junior year decided I wanted to teach and coach. I got out of the car on that winter morning and I could feel an assortment of teenage eyes on me. The attention and recognition of being put on a pedastil by my new students was my new drug that would turn out to be a hard habit to break.

For a football coach Larry Lewis was a little man. It was unusual for the head football coach of a large city high school to teach any classes that involved actual teaching, but Coach Lewis taught five classes of advanced American History.

“Hi Rich, I heard a lot about you. They tell me you don’t need much rehearsal, that you are ready for prime time.”

I don’t remember responding. “This is what page we are on, all five preps are the same, and here is the attendance and grade book. In an emergency I will be in the coach’s office.”

So that was it… my career as a teacher was taking flight and I was on my way to my second A. My student teaching experience was the first time in my life that I found my voice. I felt a true sense of value and esteem that was so different than scoring points on the basketball court or anywhere else.

While I spent the second semester of my senior year looking for a way of life, the first semester was spent looking for the party. By the time it had reached the fall of my Senior year, I was feeling my oats. I am a fashionably late type of person when it comes to everything, but now I was ready to step out. Our five man suite was to be occupied by three TKE brothers (Myself, Tom Wagner, and Kurt Jack), two of them on the Varsity basketball team and two Phi Tau brothers (Steve Digregorio, and Ozzie Breiner) both linemen on 1980 Championship Muhlenberg football team. It was only a couple weeks before school started that Wags’ dad passed away, forcing him to live at home for his senior year. That left a little nerdy freshman, Brad Moore, who now goes by the more distinguished Brad Moore M.D.,  stuck in an apartment with four self-appointed BMOC’s (Big Men on Campus). The person in charge of housing at Muhlenberg who did that to poor Brad should have been fired immediately.

Brad would claim later that in general terms he found the four of our lifestyles shocking. But his eyes opened the widest by the activities of the 22-year-old senior who lived in the single. To his three other suite mates, Brad would make inquiries into the mysterious enigma that was me.

“Do you think we should tell the campus police about Rich? Does he have any classes? Why do I see people coming and going from his room but never him?”

Ozzie and Steve would tell me some of the questions Brad would pose to them. My two roomies would answer with “Wait til the weather warms up, we will see a little more of him then,” and “he has a lot of important unspeakable business to do.”

The dichotomy of Brad and I was more perception than reality. Somewhere in the space of that year we grew to have an affection for each other. The nerdy freshman and the self-absorbed senior had more in common than either one could have ever imagined.

The two cars were still in Pennsylvania when they got off Route 22. The rain had subsided and it was hot enough that steam was rising from the ground. I parked and caught up with the three people who had been my biggest supporters during my four years in college. For such a special day, a day of beginning and a day of ending, the talk at dinner was ambiguous. I think my parents were relieved that I had made it through college with a degree and in one piece. Sue was happy she wouldn’t have to type any more of my mundane history papers. The name of the restaurant was “The Old Homestead” and it was busy for a Sunday evening. I was unusually reflective as I devoured my steak and drank my suds. I was leaving a place that I had considered my home. I was leaving my friends and I was leaving behind four years at Muhlenberg that had shaped who I was going to be for the remainder of my life. I was going back to a world I use to know but had left behind both figuratively and literally. I did not have a job or a specific plan for the future. Yet on that night, I felt accomplished, I felt secure, and more importantly, I felt confident. Back in the car deep into New York, Supertramps’ song played again. “When you look through the years and see what you could have been…What you might have been.” Thanks to my years at Muhlenberg, for the first time in my life I was sure who I was.

From the ages of 12 to 22, I defined myself by what I did on the athletic field. I was a decent high school athlete, but looking back I never realized just how small a pond I was swimming in. When it was time to move on to college, I was lightly recruited to play basketball at a couple of Division III schools. I wasn’t ready to leave competitive games behind and because of my relationship in golf with the assistant basketball coach, Jay Mattola, I chose Muhlenberg. The only thing I remember from my one visit to the campus was the awesome gym and how serious the coaches and players were about the game they were going to be playing that evening.

In 1978, Ken Moyer was the head coach and had been for over 20 years. Arriving on campus that fall of my freshman year, I quickly found out Coach Mattola only a week prior had moved on to take the head coaching job at American University. I was alone with nothing but my small town talent and a basketball that said I once scored 50 points in a high school basketball game. All these years later I know those four years I played for the Mules helped shape much of who I am today. The first three years under Moyer were an experience in themselves, and I certainly could write a book about the cast of characters surrounding those teams. There were tremendously talented players like Jimmy Hay, Greg Campisi, and Jimmy Johnson. We had the pot head guard tandem of Dave Saylor and Scott Becker. There were enough flakes to call it snow storm. We had Keith Williams, Rick Greenberg, Rick Reid, Rob Chamberlain, and oh yeah, yours truly. This combination led to mostly losing basketball and caused a very good man and excellent coach to lose his job after my junior year.

Over the summer of 1981, Muhlenberg announced the replacement of Coach Moyer. I remember being back home in New Paltz and looking at a newspaper clipping of my new mentor. The photograph was sent to me by the athletic department at Muhlenberg of a 28- year old- unknown assistant coach from Whittenberg College by the name of Steve Moore. I showed up my senior year at Muhlenberg completely unprepared for the life lessons I was about to get schooled in. It turned out that Coach Moore possessed all the attributes in a person I respected but had failed to incorporate into my personality. He was a young man who was 100% committed to his passion and the vision he had for the Muhlenberg basketball program. He lived by an unwritten code that represented- persistence, preparation, loyalty ,belief in a well- calculated plan, a complete sense of focus, purpose,  and old fashioned hard work. We started the season with a cast of mostly freshman seeing a lot of playing time in the likes of Gary Eisenbud, Rob McNamara, and Mike Spengler .We ended the season  minus the aforementioned with only eight players on the roster- Ken Chwatek, Dirk Oceanak, newcomer Chris Kahn, Kurt Jack, and myself as the lone fourth year senior were the regular starters. From day one, there was one star on that team and it was Steve Moore. I only played for Coach Moore for one season and no one other person has come close to having the influence on me than Moore did. There are not many days that go by that I don’t reference Coach silently in my head. I have never measured up to the standard he set but I have always had the gauge to remind me what the right way is. The basketball season of 1981-82 at Muhlenberg College was the only losing season Coach Moore would have. In the 34 seasons after that,  he has won 754 games at Muhlenberg and Wooster combined. he  He is 26th on the all- time win list of any college men’s basketball coach at any level. There is not a younger coach ahead of him. His winning percentage of .778 is only tarnished by his inaugural season at Muhlenberg. Last year I wrote a story from  my point of view about Moore’s  first season at Muhlenberg. Strangely enough, I could sense from my very first contacts with him I was observing the infancy of one of the best college coaches that would ever stalk the sidelines. When it is all said and done, Coach Moore could end up with the more victories than anyone that ever coached basketball on the college level. The following is an excerpt from my story on what it was like playing basketball at Muhlenberg College for Coach Moore in his initial campaign;

Approaching the open door way to the gymnasium the sounds from inside painted the picture. Sneakers screeching, a ball pounding into the hardwood floor, the clanging of the rim from an errant shot, and a primal grunt from the rebounder of the misfire. The noise was born from a competitive sense of purpose and resolve. Collectively the sounds had a serious, there’s-work-to–be-done, rhythm to them. The clangor represented individual athletes attempting to demonstrate that they had the tenacity and talents that would somehow fit into the cohesiveness of a team.

There weren’t any roars from the crowd, nor chanting of young girls in mini- skirts. Ten young men ran up and down the court as fast and hard as they could. The scoreboard was not lit and without referees it was up to the participants to call their own fouls. I was walking into pre- season pick-up basketball practice. These sessions always had an extreme intensity attached to them, and this year it appeared the players had raised their focus to an even higher level. The reason had everything to do with the young man who sat alone, five rows deep, in the otherwise vacant bleachers.

His name was Steve Moore and he was a long way from his childhood home of Monroeville, Ohio. I would have thought he was just a student checking out the action. Having seen an article, containing a photograph pertaining to his hiring, I knew it was him. Now seeing him for the first time in person I wondered how a young man of 28, with such a boyish face, could look so weighty. It was 24 hours after Labor Day 1981, many of the 10 guys on the court and the eight others sitting against the wall I had not seen since May. As I entered Memorial Hall, I felt an immediate instinctual need to show, that on this turf, I knew my way around.

After a bunch of handshaking and half hugs I was anxious to get myself in a game,

“Who’s got winners?” Dirk Oceanik made a circling motion with his fingers, “Us five,” The us five was made up of a majority of the starting five of last years’ team.

I looked impatiently at the remaining three,

“I’m with you next.”

Knowing it would be at least a half hour before my team would be ready to take the floor I headed to an open spot across the gym to loosen up. Whether they were or not, I felt the peer of that solitary spectator in the stands watching my every move.

Coach Moore apparently had seen enough basketball for the day and had vanished before I got my turn on the floor. It would be a week before I saw him again at the first pre season meeting of the men’s basketball team. The room above the gym was already filled by the time I made my entrance. I arrived precisely at the scheduled meeting time and the new head coach of the Muhlenberg Mules had already started talking.

” If a meeting is at 7 O’clock that means the latest you should arrive is 6:55, anything after that and you will be considered late,” was his opening.” My only responsibility at Muhlenberg is to coach the Men’s Varsity basketball team. I will guarantee three things that will be true about our team as long as I am the coach: 1.We will be in better condition than our opponent. 2. We will play intense man-to-man defense on every possession. 3. We will be more efficient on the offensive end than any team we play . How many wins that will translate into is an unknown, but the aforementioned will be facts about this team. Practice begins October 15th, between now and then I will be meeting with each one of you formally.” Meeting adjourned.

As the 30 or so basketball candidates passed I remained in the doorway until they had all gone by. Entering my senior year  I did feel a sense of entitlement that went along with being an immature, 22- year- old who had an overblown perspective of his relevance. I wanted to be the last person left in the room and leave Coach Moore with a chance to introduce himself to me in a personal way. Realizing the quiet young man was not going to make the first move, I approached him directly with an outstretched hand .

“Welcome to Allentown, how do you like it so far?” No response just a nod of the head. “I’m Rich Siegel, I will probably be the only senior on the team this year.” Still, nothing. I made one more try. “Have you found a place to live?” I sheepishly asked. Finally, he spoke his first words to me directly.” I am staying in Prosser Dorm until I close on my house.” All these years later I still wish I could take back the following two sentences. “Oh Prosser, I know most of the smooth girls over there. Anytime you want me to help you hook up let me know.” Now Coach Moore made eye contact. As I peck on the computer today I can still see the look on his face.  It was a posture of disdain, pity, and disgust all rolled up into one scowl.” I am married with two baby girls,” were his last words to me that night.

To be continued….

The big kid from Nutley, New Jersey had already marked his territory. Placing the Vince Lombardi poster right next to the one of Farrah Fawcett looked compatible enough in the far right corner room. I haven’t met many guys whose surname ends in a vowel with a full head of pure blond hair. I realized right away, that although Steve DiGregorio wore his 240 pound frame topped with platinum blond hair with a quiet confidence, he was not the stereotypical college football player. The 18 year old freshman had already been at Muhlenberg for a little over a week, grinding at two-a-days for the Mules’ gridiron squad. I pushed open the metal door to suite 102 of Benfer dorm located on the Southwest tip of the college campus. Steve stood in the middle of the living room wearing grey athletic shorts, a grey tee shirt , and a bit of a smirk.

“Hey I’m Steve.” “Hey I’m Rich,’’ ended our snippety exchange.

That’s all I remember about our initial meeting. We were both unaware at the time that our random pairing would be the only constant in this five-man college suite over the next three years. The cast of characters would range from a misunderstood hoopster, to a future reverend, to the quarterback of the football team, and a motor head. A formula that added up to some humorous and memorable interchanges.

Every suite at Benfer was an eight person suite with the exception of the ours. The living quarters in 102 consisted of one bathroom, a living room, two double rooms, and a single. The spring after pledging the TKE fraternity, I was invited to live with two other frat brothers. Howie Bidwell and Tom Wagner were roomies, I had the single, and something fell through with the other two people who were supposed to live with us. I knew over the summer that come Fall, two strangers would be thrown into our mix and that tenuous proposition wasn’t sitting too well with me; so to discover Steve that first day certainly came as a welcome relief. Now there was just one more arrival we anxiously awaited. In walks Mark Pintavalle, a wiry, raw buckaroo-type out of West Chester, Pa.

Most of the students at Muhlenberg were not born with silver spoons in their mouths but Mark turned it up a notch when it came to being working class. He mostly adorned a white tee-shirt and dark blue jeans with a wide belt pulled in tight. At 5’8’’, 140 pounds, and displaying a black mustache that he was probably born with, Mark could have easily been mistaken for a custodian. He pulled into the Benfer dormitory parking lot in a 1969 white Ford that was as square as he was. It took about a week for his suite mates to learn everything they would ever know about Mark Pintavalle. His mom died when he was a boy, he was paying his own way through school, he planned on being a lawyer, he had no middle name, and every night before he went to sleep he drank two full glasses of Jim Beam scotch. Mark took his Jim Beam in the same fashion that he drank it- unaccompanied.

The early morning winds of March 1981 were blowing strongly as the 1968 Pontiac convertible made the turn off of Chew Street and down the hill to Benfer. It was just three months earlier while the four of us watched our ritual Monday Night Football when Howard Cosell announced John Lennon was shot. Tom Wagner, Rick Greenberg, Scott Waldman, and I were returning from one of our regular jaunts to Atlantic City. The city of sin was only an hour and a half jump from Allentown. Whenever we could scrape up some cash we would hit the road to gamble and give in to our degenerate sides. These trips had routine detours to the City of Brotherly Love, but Philly usually left us feeling no love, just broke and hungover. One night in particular, we had an aberration. All of us were returning home, in our glory, with numerous Ben Franklins that had replaced our fives and tens. With no regard for the fact that it was 4:30 am on Wednesday morning, we came storming through the door of Suite 102 making noise and taking names. One hundred dollar bills were flying around in the air as Mark and Steve emerged from their slumber. Steve had his usual Cheshire cat grin on, anticipating the fireworks that were about to go off. Greenie danced in front of Mark waving c notes in his face.

“How many pots do you have to scrub in the cafeteria to get one these Marcus?”

My suite mate stood silent, his eyes squinting with disdain at the band of idiots before him. After more taunting and tomfoolery, Mark Pintavalle had had enough. Mark seemed to always direct his verbal retaliation towards me no matter who the perpetrator. As Greenie boasted of using 100 dollar bills “to wipe his ass” Mark had the final word.

“Greenie and Richie Kid, there aren’t enough 100 bills in the world to fill your two assholes.”

The suites in Benfer alternated between male and female. There were three suites of boys and girls each on three separate floors. Like any college campus , the separate dorms had their own tawdry tales that were specific to a certain section of the university. Even though I was coming out of my freshman year shell, I was not ready to project myself as any sort of lady killer. As a matter of fact, for having one of the only single rooms on campus at the time, I was spending far too many nights alone. I remember Howie Bidwell addressing my underutilization of my private quarters with a threat.

“If I don’t start seeing some babes coming and going we are switching rooms.”

Arguably, I made up for a quiet sophomore year with a moderate degree of visitors my junior and senior years. Just from Benfer, there was the blonde from the field hockey team, the wannabe masseuse from the first floor, the smart, mature resident of Suite 103, and the occasional 3:00am door knocker who wanted to have a drink and “talk things over”. But it was the girls who lived upstairs that made the most noise in Suite 102. There was Melissa, who put her hooks in Steve. There was Judy and Wags rolling around somewhere in the suite working on their night moves. And there was always Vicki, our senior year suitemate and Ozzie Breiner’s high school sweetheart and future wife. For me there were two girls that lived right above us that all these years later still represent the dichotomy of all I want in a woman. Andrea, the fun loving, beautiful dancer and the daughter of a doctor, out of Ho-ho-kus, New Jersey. Then there was Laura, the bright, serious, and beautiful brunette from a decidedly blue- collar family that resided in central New Jersey. Two very different, yet amazing, girls who probably unbeknownst to them competed for my heart. From my days at Benfer and beyond, all women eventually would be measured in terms of how they stacked up against Andrea and Laura.

It was already 10:00 am and I could hear a light rain gently hitting the window pane outside my suite . It was early for a Saturday and the room looked typical of a prior night party. The carpeted floor was wet from a spilled ice bucket and the room smelled of Gin Orange Blossoms. Being a bartender in the summer gave me an opportunity to have a complete top-shelf bar stocked in my room. If you needed Tanqueray, Stoli, Bacardi, Jack, or Johnny -I had it. Earlier that morning I received an unexpected guest who had not traveled more than 20 yards to find me. The radio was still tuned to the soft rock station that we had found in the darkness. Between Ambrosia and Air Supply, I heard an ad for a free concert in Central Park-Simon and Garfunkel would be doing a reunion benefit concert at 7:00 pm that day, September 19, 1981.

“We’re going to New York,” I whispered to my companion. “Let’s go,” she replied without hesitation.

We arrived in the Big Apple around 4:00 pm just as the rain was subsiding. With the concert a good three hours away, we found a seat on a grassy knoll. Where we sat was so far from the stage that I couldn’t have distinguished if it was Abbott and Costello or Sonny and Cher at the microphones. Finally I could hear the voice of then mayor, Ed Koch loud and clear when he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Simon and Garfunkel.” There were some guitar riffs and then lyrics, “We’d like to know a little about you for our files.” I will never be able to revel in that special time with my sole partner in crime that day. Corrine, the girl who didn’t hesitate in agreeing to our impromptu city concert in the park, never had the opportunity to be crazy after all these years. At only 34 years old, she succumbed to cancer. “Time it was, and what a time it was, it was. A time of innocence a time of confidences.” Rest in peace, Corrine.

I had not been back to Muhlenberg in 33 years. It was September again and I had in tow with me my 17 year old daughter checking out Dad’s alma mater to see if it could be a fit for her when she heads off to college. School was not in session due to the Jewish holidays, but we were there to see a girls’ field hockey game and check out the campus. My visual of Muhlenberg was that it was so different even though my heart was telling me it was the same. The college had grown so much and for me it was the first time I had seen the Athletic Center, which was constructed in the 80’s. It was my first view of the new library and the refurbished student union building. So much had changed and so much had disappeared. When the game was over and my daughter finished her recruitment chat with the coach, she was ready to leave but I wasn’t.

“ Before we leave I want to check something out.” The two of us walked across the deserted Campus. “Let’s go home, Dad,” said my impatient daughter.

“Hang on MK, I have to see if it’s still there and then we can go.”

As we crossed Chew Street and headed onto the southern side of campus, I could see the roof. Down the hill, and hidden from the more modern Muhlenberg, was Benfer dorm still standing proudly. We walked around to the back side which was the entrance way to Suite 102. The dorm was locked so I tried to look through the window. I squinted and peered hard, only to see emptiness. The whole place looked unkempt and abandoned.

“Let’s go—it’s looks like a ghost town, ” Mary Kate said to me before noticing my eyes welling. Her tone changed, “Dad, why are you crying?”

I didn’t need words to convey that my tears were for the memories, and the part of me that remained inside those walls.

Central Park Show with Simon and Garfunkel:

(If you watch close enough you may see me at 1:14:41)

PROLOGUE: As a cocky, 19 year old freshman I was attempting to learn and grow. Still, that first year at Muhlenberg was as traumatic for me as any I have known. I was filled with angst, confusion, and inner rebellion. Pledging a frat played against my notion that strong willed independent individuals and fraternal organizations are not a good fit. To this day I am a fierce libertarian, adamantly opposed to group mentality. In the long run, joining TKE helped a cynical, distraught loner take the first step in understanding that a crowd maybe unattractive, but it doesn’t mean that the individuals are. Thanks Jon, Rick, and my fellow TKE brothers.

Gideon P. Egnar Chapel was perfectly cast as a fitting setting to stage the opening scene of a fraternity initiation ceremony. The quiet. The darkness. The reverence. All of this foreshadowed the mysterious hocus pocus that goes along with fraternal rites of passage. In 1979, Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) was one of five fraternities that had a house on the campus of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. Roughly half of the male students at Muhlenberg participated in Greek life and on this April night, 29 TKE pledges gathered at the college church with the hope of soon being inducted into a secretive and alluring brotherhood. The Sergeant at Arms (Pylortes) was a Yankee from Connecticut named John Crow. As the star of the lacrosse team he was perfect for the part of a true “hard ass” who enjoyed the reputation he had of intimidating the pledges.

“You losers sit in the pews and wait for the car to come take you to the house for the initiation ceremony,” Crow squawked. “You’ll be taken one at a time in the order you rank in the pledge class…best to worst.”

I shook my head and looked at my partner in crime, Rick Greenberg. “Well pal, it’s going to be a long night.” “Greenie” and I may not have known the precise order but we knew for sure that one of us was 28th in the class and one of us was 29th .

As a freshman in college I had reached an apex in terms of being an angry young man. I was aloof, judgmental, cynical, and at times mean spirited. This wasn’t exactly the type of personality that attracts fraternities attention when recruiting pledges. When I returned to Muhlenberg after winter break in January of 1979, the official fraternity “rush” process began. Rush was approximately two weeks at the beginning of the second semester when each of the five fraternities had an opportunity to entertain applicants in their respective houses. During these recruiting sessions the freshman get poked and prodded like cattle by suitors to see if they have the proper stock to be a member of their brotherhood. Of course each fraternity has the whole first semester to unofficially evaluate incoming freshman, but rushing gave the frat boys an opportunity to extend an official bid. I spent rush playing beer pong, watching varying forms of bestiality porn and observing a variety of loosely clad co-eds trying to present evidence that the frat attracted the best looking babes. Fortunately, my basketball teammate and future “big brother”, Jon Lucas, saw something in me beyond the jerk off exterior that was Rich Siegel. My buddy “Greenie” got bids to three of the five houses. He was starting on the Varsity basketball team as a freshman and was sponsored by the captain of the basketball team, Greg Campisi. The brothers of Phi Kappa Tau wanted him to be a PKT brother badly. Rick’s decision turned out to be easy. His buddy, yours truly, had only received one bid and it was from TKE. The moment Rick decided to pledge TKE, I knew I had at least one true ally in Allentown.

As if perched on a king’s throne, Mitch Seidman sat on top of a washing machine in Prosser Dorm. The newly elected Class of 82 TKE pledge President was attempting to begin the bonding process of future TKE brothers. Mitch was certainly intense and gung-ho on being the most dedicated TKE brother that ever walked the planet.

“O.K. fellas, we’re responsible for pulling off one raid of the house. For the raid to count, all 29 of us need to participate; so let’s agree on a date we’re all available.”

I remained silent during the discussion and neither objected nor accepted any proposed dates. I said nothing until April 15th was agreed upon. From the back of the laundry room, my rarely heard voice rose over the tumbling washers.

“I have a test the next morning and I’m not going on that day.”

A unison of groans bellowed from my 28 future brothers.

“Siegel why did you even pledge? All you do is disrupt everything I try to accomplish,” said the frustrated pledge leader as his face turned the color of his flaming hair.

I went to bed early the night of April 15th, 1979. From what I understand, 28 TKE pledges successfully raided their future fraternity house. They were given credit for completing one of the tasks on a very long list. Rich Siegel was sleeping. I gathered no one noticed, or cared.

The pledging and hazing process brought the best personality traits out in some of the brothers and the worst in others. All around there was no shortage of hard asses. John Crow took pride in intimidating the underclassmen with his Clint Eastwood persona. Al Nicolosi never resisted a chance to question me on campus about his birthday or girlfriend’s pet name. I made it a point to never have the right answer and refused to do my public punishment of push-ups . I preferred to do double the required push- ups in private to avoid the sophomoric humiliation. Bill Hosier went out of his way to bust the balls of the pledges as if we were some dumb ass commoners not worthy of being bonded with his stellar personality. February through April made up the hazing season. Each individual fraternity on the Muhlenberg campus had a perception attached to it. ATO was the bad boys, ZBT consisted of many soon to be Jewish doctors, PKT was loaded with pretty boy prepsters who could have portrayed the cool frat in “Revenge of the Nerds”, SPE was made up of the guys who didn’t fit into the other three and TKE was simply recognized as the “nice guys”. The nice guys’ hazing ranged from over consumption of alcoholic beverages to bobbing for M and M’s in a brother’s darkest abyss.

It became apparent to me that no matter the house, Greek life was, for the most part, universal. There were nuances and idiosyncrasies between the frats but mostly the same themes: strength in numbers, group mentality, and castrating individuality in favor of a strong bonded brotherhood. I observed plenty of fraters develop new found courage and boldness with a fraternal organization backing their mostly nefarious tendencies (Paul Accod, PKT). I saw an equal amount preserve their individuality at the expense of being portrayed as poor team players. (Rich Kronewitter, TKE). Then there were the mature and grounded fraters who were able to find that delicate balance of loyal soldiers to their house and understanding it was okay to have friends who displayed different letters on their shirts. Paul Alplanab (SPE), Mark Bisbing (PKT), Chris Kahn (ZBT), Bobby Doidge (ATO), and Rich Romeo, along with pledge classmate Ken Rubin, were guys who carried themselves with that understanding.

Finally as daylight crept into Egnar Chapel, I was literally alone. The angry young man and maverick in me smelled victory. The competitive and sensitive boy in me tasted defeat. I was the last remaining pledge sitting in the fading darkness on that long ago April night. In the house of the Lord, I have always struggled to find faith. Like most of that freshman year, I wore the misty eyes of abandonment. I knew I hadn’t been a committed pledge and was already trying to convince myself that being ranked dead last out of 29 pledges was some type of badge of honor. My thoughts of wallow were interrupted when three TKE brothers arrived in the foyer.

“Will pledge number 29 of the class of 1982 please step into the triangle.” The three sided, equilateral triangle represented mind, body and heart within the TKE fraternal order. The ride to the initiation ceremony was silent. A raucous house of tired and drunk fraters awaited me. As I was escorted inside of the house, I could hear screaming.

“Blackball him! We don’t want him! He’s the shittiest pledge in the history of TKE!”

Facing the counsel, with a mob that was the brotherhood at my back, I awaited my test for rite of passage. Al Nicolosi and I locked hateful eyeballs as three questions were posed to me. I remember that I correctly answered two of the three required for initiation. More yelling for my ouster ensued. Just as I had become resigned that it was all for the better, that this fraternity life was not for me, a piling of my new brothers charged in to give welcoming, congratulatory hugs. Whether any of them (or I) liked it, we were now brothers…in the bond-forever.

I arrived alone to navigate my first day as a college freshman at Muhlenberg in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1978. For the Sunday before classes were to commence, I was struck by the strangely hushed and peaceful air that surrounded me. I was assigned to start my new life in the Martin Luther dormitory that sits on the northeast corner of campus. I found my way to the dorm, but could not find one soul to help me locate room 50. After some random wandering I stumbled upon my room on the second floor, all the way at the west wing of the hall. The dorm traditionally housed incoming freshman boys, and I realized the close proximity of Memorial Hall Gymnasium. There was only a stairwell, exterior wall, and ten feet of pavement that separated my small room and the basketball arena. At 6pm on this late August night it had the feel of an old fort that had been abandoned temporarily. One could sense the cyclical commotion that had calmed in May only to resume with full force in September. I was alone as I pushed open the door to my new room. An unfamiliar set of eyes from a poster stared right at me when I looked up to survey my new dwelling. The guy in the poster was dressed in a white tee shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, he had a guitar draped around his neck and looked like a typical “greaser” , back in the day. Diverting from the poster’s gaze I looked around the drab cell-like quarters and the scattering of somebody else’s paraphernalia. I felt overwhelmingly disconnected and forgotten. I dropped my big suit case to the middle of the floor and fell onto my unfamiliar bed and wept.

Dave Ambrose hailed from what was then, the typical central New Jersey Italian family. Saturdays were spent watching Notre Dame on the gridiron, and following church, Sunday afternoons were dedicated to eating pasta and meatballs. His family spent two weeks each summer at the Jersey shore. At a college rife with aspiring MD’s , Dave’s choice of majoring in Art History was surely atypical. His rather stoic and solemn nature was not the norm for an 18 year old freshman either. Some of his personality, I am sure , was borne out of losing his father early . That fact, along with loving athletics, but not being much of an athlete, might explain why he seemed to retreat within . Unfortunately for Dave he would being sharing tight living quarters with me who was completely lost. I was not prepared for any sort of bonding, and even less in sharing anything personal about myself. Besides having lost my way, I was not the kind of roomie anyone would be excited about—an angry young man hanging on to a self-absorbed, over inflated perception of who I was and my place in the world. I was fast realizing in this whirlwind of change , that I had been a big fish in a very small pond.

As my new living companion stuck out his hand to introduce himself, “I’m Dave Ambrose,” I gave the appropriate salutation in return, but secretly whispered to myself, “Hi, I am nobody.”

From my perspective growing up in New Paltz did separate me from the other 18 year olds who arrived on the Muhlenberg campus in the fall of 1978. My home town was an insulated college hamlet surrounded with all the entrapments of the 60’s. To many of my friends and associates it was a time warp. Whether for better or worse I was comfortable in a world filled with partying. Drugs and alcohol had become common place in my life. My senior year in high school embodied the idea of “small town golden boy.” I resisted the step of leaving my comfort zone and heading off to college. Outwardly I was arrogant, distant, and angry. Inside I knew I was just one of the crowd but refused to accept this fact as I searched for ways to be different from my peers. It’s a surprise to me that even to this day I remember so many of my freshmen dorm mates. I have not seen one of them since graduation, but their faces remain clear in my head. John Trump and Rich Kronewitter were the TKE brothers who lived across the hall. John Kreger, a straight laced guy, who was sure to turn out to be a company man handled the resident advisor duties. He helped arrange switches in troubling rooming assignments. I lived with Parsippany preppie John Spagnola for the second semester. Steve Loh walked around like he was running for Mayor. For a tall geeky lad he was popular enough, and appeared to always get what he wanted. Scott Shikora and Bruce White were roomies from Long Island who went home every week-end. At a time when Phil Esposito was still playing they were fanatical Ranger hockey fans. And finally, Bill Scully , who although never threw one pitch for the Muhlenberg Mules, guaranteed we would all see him playing in the majors.
That first semester of my freshman year I focused on my school work more than at any other point in my life. Mon, Wed, Friday, intermediate French at 8 am, Intro. To Communications at 10am, and Freshman English at 2pm. Tuesday and Thursday it was Philosophy at 8am and American History at 11am. Every morning I made it to my 8am classes. This was quite an accomplishment for an 18 year old who the previous summer never arrived home before the street lights went down. I was proud of the 2.6 cumulative I pulled off that semester and more importantly I had demonstrated to myself I could set and reach goals. For the first time in I my life I was learning in the classroom and actually began to understand myself. I discovered in Ed Baldridge’s class that I loved History. I read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” for Dick Thornburg’s literature class and realized that I longed to be something more than a dim jock. That fall it was clear that nothing was going to be easy for me– that nothing was going to be handed to me. I was going to have earn back the notion of who I thought I once was. At Muhlenberg I was aware not a single person could have cared one iota about the life and times of Rich Siegel.

Jay Mottola, who is now the President of the New York Metropolitan Golf Association had much to with my decision to attend Muhlenberg. Coach Mottola was originally from Tuxedo New York and I got to know him as a boy on the links. He had been the assistant basketball coach at Muhlenberg and was one of only two coaches who recruited me to play basketball at a Division III college. The other was Ron DeArgenio,  was an assistant head coach at Moravian. He recruited me on the advice of his college roommate at East Strasburg State, Kemble Matter who just happened to be my high school gym teacher. On my second day in Allentown I walked eagerly into the athletic offices looking for Jay Mottola .

“Hi I am Rich Siegel ,” I said to the receptionist. “Is Coach Mottola in?”

“No I am sorry, he took a job coaching at American University last week, he was replaced by Ron DeArgenio.”

The rug had been yanked out from under me and I felt abandoned. When informal fall practice began I counted approximately ten guards who believed they were ahead of me on the varsity basketball team depth chart. It started with senior captains Greg Campisi and Jimmy Johnson. It continued with a pair of sophomores who had seen considerable playing time as freshmen. Dave Saylor was the Allen High home town hero , who looked like and acted like he should be playing in the over 30 league. The other sophomore stalwart was the smooth and efficient Scott Becker. Behind them were Mike Clinton, Bobby Klutz, Jon Lucas, and Rick Greenberg. I didn’t know it the but the battles I had against my own teammates for playing time helped start me on a lifetime of self- discovery. I found a person inside me that I had never known. A competitive fighter with a never quit, take no prisoners , never give up attitude.

It was December 22, 1978 and Martin Luther Hall with the exception of my solitary figure in room 50 was completely still. Earlier in the morning I had taken my intermediate French final . Basketball practice was finished at 5:30 and on this night and for the first time since August I would be driving home to New Paltz. I had been the last of the class of 1982 to arrive at Muhlenberg, so it seemed fitting that I would be the last to leave after the completion of the first semester. Upon my arrival at Muhlenberg my classmates were all present but I felt totally alone. Now, I was by myself sitting on my dorm bed contemplating the last four months. It had been the most dramatic, the most frightening and the most enlightening time period of my life. I had learned I was nobody special and that wasn’t such a bad thing. I discovered I had lived so far being a person that was mostly a figment of my imagination. I knew that night that I had taken the first tiny step on the long journey of self- exploration. I had learned the hard way that I was entitled to nothing. I discovered the reward came from what was earned, what was battled for, and that pain always had to go hand-in-hand with the gain. Before beginning my ride back to New Paltz I looked across the room to the poster draped on the other wall that met me as a freshman and stared at me the four months since.. By this time I was familiar with this relatively new rock star. I thought about his passion, his indelible commitment to his work which resonated in his lyrics . “Spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come.

Well, don’t waste your time waiting.” Before I arrived at Muhlenberg “The Boss” had already started taking what he wanted. I shut the dorm door behind me and walked into the cold Allentown night knowing in that instant– I was both going and leaving home.