Ruck Leadership Experience

Author's Note: The following is a first person narrative of the Ruck Experience from an undergraduate perspective.

I boarded my plane to Richmond with thoughts going through my head about what the Ruck experience would mean to me. I was hoping it would be inspiring. I was hoping I would learn something new and different. After all, I have already attended three Carlson's and a Conclave and I have helped fascilitate Carlsons and the EDGE Program (New Member Camp). What did Ruck have in store for me?

When I finally arrived at the University of Richmond I was amazed at the beauty on that campus. It was also sort of surreal, in a sense, to be present at the very place (although the campus has moved since then) where SigEp began over 100 years ago. I got all of my stuff checked in and then headed down for the opening ceremony.

During the opening ceremony all of the students were able to hear something about Frank Ruck. Brother Ruck graduated in 1946 from the University of Michigan and was very active in both SigEp and the North-American Interfraternity Conference. Brother Ruck is remembered by many for his passion and contributions. In 1998, the Balanced Man Development Committee decided to name the Ruck Leadership Institute after this brother.

We were then introduced to our facilitators. They were John Hartman (University of Missiouri-Columbia), Thomas Jelke (Florida International University), Norman Nabhan (Purdue University), Stephen B. Shanklin (Murray State University) and Michael Wolbert (Northwest Missouri State University).

After all of the introductions the undergraduates divided up into three small group sessions. We would return to these sessions for the next four days to work more closely with our facilitators. Brother Ryan Blanck, Director of Health and Wellness, was in charge of a lot of what was going on through out the program.

We were prepared for our next speaker. Actually, we were more or less warned about our next speaker. We were all told that Brother Bill Tragos is someone that demands respect. We were even told in advance that he would probably call someone out for something that they do during his presentation. No one should wear hats or glasses in the auditorium when this man takes the stage. Tragos, as we learned, is a brother who has made a name for himself. Since his graduation from Washington University, Tragos has been very involved in the fraternity and is a retired partner in the advertising agency TBWA. His company has over $9 billion in accounts. And make sure that you remember that it is billions, not millions. He was being introduced by John Hartman. Hartman made the mistake of saying millions and was soon corrected by the yet to be introduced Tragos.

Tragos had a message that made a lot of sense to most people. He talked about the importance of Sound Mind and Sound Body and he talked about why it is important to be a Greek. Tragos tied much of his lecture into philosophers and he focused a lot on living the good life. He also spoke about having compassion and that more people should show their passion. Most people left the auditorium feeling really fired up about being a SigEp. But, just as we were warned: Tragos is a man who can come across rather abrasively. During the question and answer session one young man asked something that had to do with a "hell week." Tragos began answering his question and when referring to the hell week said, "...and if we catch you I hope we take your fucking charter." Another guy in the audience began to yawn. Tragos said that it really pissed him off to see someone do that. Sometimes he did not let students finish their questions before rushing into his response. But, agree or disagree with his delivery, the man has a passion for the fraternity that surpasses most.

After a few more group sessions we went back to our dorm rooms. We had an early morning activity the next morning. This is when we first met an amazing man called Rod Raymond. I was running a little bit late to get down to this early morning activity. I rushed down stairs to see all the brothers gathered around in a circle. There was this guy in the center of the circle that looked like he had just stepped off a west coach beach or something. His hair danced about his head with no purpose or discipline. He had a tone and accent in his voice that was really up beat and energetic. I was seriously looking for the serf board. But instead, he had a towel on the ground. Rod was leading us all in a series of stretches. We all stretched parts of our body that I don't think we thought existed. He stressed the importance of balance and the importance of walking properly. He even taught us how to breathe more appropriately. When we finished with Rod's stretches we went on to breakfast and then to our next speaker, Brother Richard Bennet.

Brother Bennet had many good things to say. He too is an accomplished professional as a 30 year plus retail veteran. But, I am going to be honest about something. I think Rod wore most of us out with these stretches. It was very difficult for us to stay awake during the presentations. There was coffee available outside the auditorium after Brother Bennet was speaking, but not before hand. It was so obvious that we were all getting tired that Brother Bennet even stopped his speech and asked us all to stand and stretch (again). I kind of felt bad for him, but it was all that I could do to stay awake myself. Brother Bennet did have an interesting approach to improving chapter though. I will never forget that part of his message. He said that we should cut the bottom 10 percent out of everything that we are involved in. This happens many times in companies. It is difficult to look at the ones you call brothers and then tell them that they have to go because they are on the bottom, but it does make sense. That's the hard part though: weighing the progressive business side of the fraternity against the brotherly love aspect. I think I would just try my hardest to make the bottom ten percent better.

Then, it was back to small groups. And in our group was none other than Rod Raymond. I am serious when I say that everyone in attendance at Ruck came to love this guy! He is even going to be speaking at Conclave too. Brother Raymond is a brother by renaissance. He and Ryan Blanck met while over seas. Raymond is a distinguished athlete, having been a U.S. Olympic Cycling Trials participant, finished second place in the 2000 Hawaii Ironman competition and won the Scottish Coast-to-Coast Triathlon, the Trans-Swiss Triathlon, the Swiss Gigathlon, and the Border-to-Border Triathlon (setting the course record and winning it three times). Rod led our groups discussion on living a healthy life. Anything that is processed he would say, "It's plastic!" He is a very energetic speaker and is a great addition to our fraternity.

Later that night we went to see a Shakespeare play, "Comedy of Errors." This was a good relaxing time and it added a great Sound Mind aspect to our evening. Agecroft Hall, where we saw the play, was actually made from wood originally from England (or so they said). It was a great play and I really enjoyed it.

On our way to the play we did have an experience with our buses. One of them kept stalling on us and it was kind of a running joke as to when the bus was going to break down. The ceiling on one of them looked like it had been in a World War battle as well. We came to appreciate these non-dependable buses later on.

That night we all went out and played a game of Ultimate Frisbee. This was a lot of fun! Everything was going well and we were just about to rap up the night. There were only a few more plays to be made. It was then that I looked around and noticed that one of my team members had been knocked down and he wasn't getting up. It was our second day at Ruck and one of our brothers had the unfortunate experience of breaking his collar bone. One of the other guys landed on top of him causing his collar bone to actually break in two places. He was strong though. He never cried or anything, just sat there and said that it hurt. The ambulance came and took him away. I figured he would be going home. Nope. He was right back with us the next morning. Granted, his experience was probably more enjoyable then ours given the hydrocodones that he had received from the pharmacy. This guy showed diligence though. Either that or he didn't have the money to make his flight two days early.

On Saturday morning we got back on our buses and went to a place called Challenge Discovery. This place was a lot of fun as well. We did several climbing activities and focused on team building and leadership. We had new facilitators for these activities. They were a lot of fun to work with. Out of Challenge Discovery we learned a new type of chant, I suppose. We would all begin clapping our hands and go down to the ground and then back up. Someone would count to three and we would raise our hands to the sky and yell, "Woosh!" Yea, I'm sure it sounds kind of corny, but it was a lot of fun and it really enforced the idea of being positive in everything that you do. The most difficult part of Challenge Discovery looked to be the easiest. There was a telephone pole in the ground that was probably about 40 feet tall. It had spikes on the side of it so that you could climb to the top. The last spike was about 18 inches or so away from the top of the pole. The goal was to get to the top of the pole and then stand up on it. For the few that made it this far, there was a trampeze bar that you could jump to and try to hold on to once your hands hit the bar. I think this is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was a mental game. Once I got to the top of the pole I kept thinking I was going to fall. I looked down and saw how twisted the pole was and I saw how much it was shaking. It took my team yelling at me to keep going and some personal thoughts to actually make it. I did though. I even caught the trampeze bar and was able to hold on to it for a while. It was a great feeling to have accomplished this. After our hours at Challenge Discovery, our facilitators gave each of us an arm bracelet that reads: "Challenge Discovery: Experience, Learn Grow, Change." Each of us at Ruck made a commitment to wearing our bracelets until Conclave. If you see someone wearing a red bracelet, that's us. Woosh!

We had several other meetings with our small group. I am not writing much about the small group meetings. That's not to say that the meetings weren't productive. We each had great facilitators and they gave us a lot of insight into chapter operations. There was a lot done about focusing on our goals and focusing on our values and our vision for ourselves and for our chapter. This stuff is really important. But, it was slightly like the Carlson sessions. I have also attended the Recruitment Boot Camp that is put on by SigEp brother David Stollman. Stollman had us do a lot of this vision and values defining then too. The small group meetings were very important, but I will remember the other times more than I will the time with the small groups.

Mom Nonnie was a definite highlight of the Ruck experience. We had dinner with her that night and she did her entire etiquette training with us. She is a very sweet woman and really knows her stuff. She too will be at Conclave. There is one thing about that session that I will never forget either. Mom was talking to us about how we should be polite and remember who we represent while we are in public. Then these words came out of her mouth: "I know how you are. You see your friends or fraternity brothers walking across campus and you yell: "hey dick head," or "hey douchebag!" I am glad I didn't have food in my mouth at that point or I would probably have lost it! She definitely had our attention. I learned a lot about fine dining with her. I am sure much of that will be put to use some day.

And then there were the busses again. Well, except this time there were no busses. We were supposed to go to a bowling alley for the night. But, our wonderful busses decided not to show. You could see some degree of anticipation among the crowd as we waited for Ryan Blanck to figure out what we were going to do. Rod just said we would go on a walk down to the bridge on campus. Not exactly bowling, but okay. We went down to the bridge for a bit and Rod told us a wonderful story about how powerful the mind is. I am telling you, this man is truly an inspiration. We started admitting to having a "man crush" on Rod! After we were at the bridge for a little while we went over to this outdoor Greek theater on campus.

Keep in mind that none of this was supposed to be happening. Our busses didn't show. Ironically enough, there were even chairs out at the outdoor theater. It looked like they were going to be having a wedding the next day. We all sat down in the chairs and wondered what we were going to be doing. Little did we know, that we were about to be a part of one of the greatest experiences of SigEp. I will never in my life forget that night. With respect to the occasion and to the stories that were told, I am not going to go into any detail or mention any names. But we had brothers get up on stage and share with us some of their life stories that have changed their lives. We heard from guys who have made a commitment to living substance free because of their loss of a grandpa at an early age. We heard from guys who spoke with heavy hearts about problems they were having with their dad. This was an emotional time and all of us could feel the energy and passion. If you could ever make brotherly love into something tangible, it was that theater that night. I have never bonded with people so quickly in all my life. We didn't leave the theater until about 3 a.m. in the morning. Wow. I stayed up and talked to my room mate for about another hour after that. We all left there with a spirit of SigEp that was fired up like it had never been before.

Sunday morning was the last day of our Ruck experience. Our buses showed back up that morning and took us to down town Richmond. We got to see some of the statues and monuments that down town has to offer. We also got to see the actual place of Reyland Hall. There was paper and crayons there for us to color over the plaque that stated Sigma Phi Epsilon had been founded. After this we got a tour of Zollinger House. It was a great feeling to be sitting in the board room of Zollinger. There is a library in there that contains books that were authored by SigEp brothers. There are paintings of all of the founders that hang up in the rooms. It was a very personal and great experience. Everything seemed to be complete. The night before we were all moved and felt the fire of SigEp burning in us. The Zollinger house experience really made me think of the fire that has burned inside so many of those who have come before me and my fellow undergraduates. Many men have worked day in and day out for this fraternity and to allow so many of us to experience what we take for granted. I felt the honor of being part of an organization that is so great and so rewarding.

We stayed around Zollinger House for a while longer and took several photos. Then, we got our send off from Ryan and Rod. This is when Rod told us that he is probably going to be on the next filming of the Aprentice and that he was the second alternate for Survivor. Did I mention how amazing this guy is? I'll admit it, I have the man crush for Rod.

We got back on the busses and went to the airport. Ruck was over. My plane was about two hours late. When I finally got on it I began thinking about the questions that I had on my flight to Richmond. They had been answered. Ruck is probably the greatest experience that I have had with SigEp. It was simply amazing to see so many great people come together and share their vision and values and their hearts. Ruck was much more than I expected. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a drive for SigEp and who wants to make change. I ended up sitting next to this lady on the plane that kept asking me questions. Usually, this would probably annoy me. But, I wanted to talk to someone about how great of an experience I had just had. She was eager to listen and was shocked that a fraternity was doing so many of these great things. I told her that three years ago I was shocked too. Now, it's something that I am proud of and something that I know will impact my life forever.