PKT25: Ponding
Because I was president of the fraternity in the spring 1999 semester, I qualified for one of our more random fraternity traditions. Ponding involved abducting the brother in question from the fraternity house and taking him down to the lagoon in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he would be ceremonially thrown into the water.
There were three ways for an active member of the fraternity to be eligible for ponding.
1. Serve as president of the fraternity.
2. Have a child.
3. Get engaged or married.
Neal was the only brothers who qualified via [2] when I was an active. We definitely had a few brothers to got ponded after being engaged, but since we had a new president every semester for five years, that was main source of ponding victims.
Ponding had a bunch of unwritten rules that I don't claim to recall clearly, but it went more or less like this:
- In order to be ponded, you must have met one of the three eligibility requirements, and the weather had to be good. It had to be at least a certain temperate (I don't recall the number) and not raining. Brothers would usually note that such and such brother was eligible for ponding and plan ahead to grab him at a specific time.
- At the appointed time, the chapter would grab the brother in question and haul him into a car. The brother was allowed to fight back and escape, and if he broke away and made it into his room the ponding effort was ended. Pragmatically, I don't recall this ever happening. Some people fought hard, but in the end if you've got a house full of fraternity brothers tackling one guy, he's getting put in the car. I think it took 9 or 10 guys to drag Tony into a car. In my case they grabbed me at the end of a chapter meeting near the end of the semester. At one point they inadvertently smacked my head against the wall while carrying me out, with two people on each arm and leg and someone with their arms wrapped around my torso.
- Once you were in the car, the rule was that you wouldn't try to jump out during the short drive down East Boulevard to the lagoon. Once you arrived, you'd be grabbed and hauled down to the lagoon. You could struggle, but at this point there wasn't much point.
- There was a specific piece of sidewalk on the East Boulevard side of the lagoon that was the launch point for ponding. If I recall correctly, someone had carved a Phi in the concrete. Once you were delivered to that piece of sidewalk, custom required you to stop struggling.
- Since the lagoon is pretty much always murky (probably from all the goose shit), one brother would slide into the water to make sure there wasn't obstructions under the surface. Meanwhile, the brother to be ponded would be given the option to remove anything he didn't want to get wet.
- A brief airborn journey concluded with a splash. Most of the brothers would scatter. Typically, one of the brothers would stick around to give the ponded brother a lift back to the house. Sometimes towels and/or blankets were even provided as a courtesy, or at least to protect the car.
As with many such traditions, I have no idea where this one came from. I'm told that in the post brothers would occasionally be ambushed near the lagoon and dragged in from there, but I don't believe that happened when I was an active. Once or twice as an undergrad I observed other fraternities ponding their members, but I have no idea what their rules for it were.
At least once campus security happened by and implied that maybe we shouldn't be there when they came back around again. That and our increasingly litigation-adverse society is why it wouldn't surprise me at all if this tradition ended somewhere along the last 25 years, but it was fun at the time.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings
There were three ways for an active member of the fraternity to be eligible for ponding.
1. Serve as president of the fraternity.
2. Have a child.
3. Get engaged or married.
Neal was the only brothers who qualified via [2] when I was an active. We definitely had a few brothers to got ponded after being engaged, but since we had a new president every semester for five years, that was main source of ponding victims.
Ponding had a bunch of unwritten rules that I don't claim to recall clearly, but it went more or less like this:
- In order to be ponded, you must have met one of the three eligibility requirements, and the weather had to be good. It had to be at least a certain temperate (I don't recall the number) and not raining. Brothers would usually note that such and such brother was eligible for ponding and plan ahead to grab him at a specific time.
- At the appointed time, the chapter would grab the brother in question and haul him into a car. The brother was allowed to fight back and escape, and if he broke away and made it into his room the ponding effort was ended. Pragmatically, I don't recall this ever happening. Some people fought hard, but in the end if you've got a house full of fraternity brothers tackling one guy, he's getting put in the car. I think it took 9 or 10 guys to drag Tony into a car. In my case they grabbed me at the end of a chapter meeting near the end of the semester. At one point they inadvertently smacked my head against the wall while carrying me out, with two people on each arm and leg and someone with their arms wrapped around my torso.
- Once you were in the car, the rule was that you wouldn't try to jump out during the short drive down East Boulevard to the lagoon. Once you arrived, you'd be grabbed and hauled down to the lagoon. You could struggle, but at this point there wasn't much point.
- There was a specific piece of sidewalk on the East Boulevard side of the lagoon that was the launch point for ponding. If I recall correctly, someone had carved a Phi in the concrete. Once you were delivered to that piece of sidewalk, custom required you to stop struggling.
- Since the lagoon is pretty much always murky (probably from all the goose shit), one brother would slide into the water to make sure there wasn't obstructions under the surface. Meanwhile, the brother to be ponded would be given the option to remove anything he didn't want to get wet.
- A brief airborn journey concluded with a splash. Most of the brothers would scatter. Typically, one of the brothers would stick around to give the ponded brother a lift back to the house. Sometimes towels and/or blankets were even provided as a courtesy, or at least to protect the car.
As with many such traditions, I have no idea where this one came from. I'm told that in the post brothers would occasionally be ambushed near the lagoon and dragged in from there, but I don't believe that happened when I was an active. Once or twice as an undergrad I observed other fraternities ponding their members, but I have no idea what their rules for it were.
At least once campus security happened by and implied that maybe we shouldn't be there when they came back around again. That and our increasingly litigation-adverse society is why it wouldn't surprise me at all if this tradition ended somewhere along the last 25 years, but it was fun at the time.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998, Spring 1999
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading, Greek Week
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority, Bars, Ponding
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, More Boo at the Zoo & Blackout, Chapter Meetings