Mickey's Bracket: Round 1

And now we have come to it, the final quadrant of Alpha Brackets for every one to argue over. There have been a lot of comments and suggestions about what should have made it, what should win, and how things should be seeded. We appreciate all the comments and, as we have told many of you, our original list of potential items had over 100 things on it, and it was definitely tough to cut it down to 68. Given the great response to the tournament thus far, we're hoping to be able to do it again in the future and may consider expanding the bracket to 96 items or have a larger selection committee to help choose what goes in the bracket.

Before we get started in the Mickey's Bracket, we have one piece of housekeeping to take care of. Thanks to some last-minute voting the other night, "Kit Thunder Plays Guitar" and "Lame Duck Chuck" actually finished in a tie with 12 votes each. This sends the matchup into Overtime! It will be up as part of this post for the next 24 hours:

Tonight's bracket, the "Mickey's Bracket" is comprised of signature Delt items. That is, without these things, Alpha Chapter would have been just your regular old run-of-the-mill "standard" fraternity. But we had these items, which defined us as a Chapter. We're thrilled with the response that Alpha Brackets has gotten thus far, and we're hoping to continue it through the rest of the tournament!

Without further ado, the #1 seed in the Mickey's Bracket, the one singular thing that made us proudest to be members of Alpha Chapter and we most fondly think of when we think about our college experience is.....

ALPHA RING

Thanks to some requests from people over the weekend, we're going to try to give a short writeup about each matchup moving forward so that people know what we're talking about, since some people might not know the inside jokes. As the #1 seed in the Mickey's Bracket, Alpha Ring will face Duckball, which won the play-in game 20-12.

The Matchups:

1. Alpha Ring	16. Duckball

Without Alpha Ring, we wouldn't have known why Phi Delts don't need hammers, what Sigs do at movies, how the Alphabet begins, how the Phi Delts grew so fast, what can be said for all sororities, why there are no virgins on the Virgin Islands, how Thetas pay for room and board, and how Kappas get their exercise. Duckball was a game invented by Brother Betush and a host of others. It was a combination of dodgeball and bowling where you hurled a ball of duct tape at the opposing team. Duckball had a great run until we broke a window.

8. Flagpole	9. Spotlight for Letters

The Flagpole and Spotlight for the Letters were two oft-repeated pipedreams that were weekly suggestions from numerous brothers during "Suggestions for the Good of the Chapter."

5. Yuengling	12. Miller High Life

No explanation needed.

4. Snow Football	13. Super Smash Brothers

Winter in Meadville, which lasts approximately 7 of the 8 months Allegheny students are in school, left Delts with two options for Friday post-class pre-dinner activities: Snow Football or Super Smash Brothers. That is, until Brother Panaro (then academic chair) banned Super Smash Brothers from the lounge in the interest of the academic good of the chapter.

6. The Beach House	11. The Red House

The Beach House, the first off-campus abode of Delts during our time was the home of brothers Jordan, Paal, and Pantelienlenselkfnskfjaskfkjsnbfsakjtes. Many good times, including the first time I met future-president Best, who introduced himself to me as "My name starts with Z and ends with achary Best." The Red House was the casa of brothers Brown, Panaro, and Halfman or some combination thereof at any given time. The Red House lasted longer than the Beach House in terms of years, but the Champion House will have to be decided by the voters.

3. Catacombes	14. Jimmy's Pickled Eggs

If you don't know what these are, you're probably not a Delt.

7. Delt Rugby Players	10. Delt Firefighters

No comments really necessary here. We'll let brothers Feitt, Brown, Frese, Yeomans, Kissling and Grosjean fight this one out in the comments.

2. Pool Table	15. Risk Management Color of the Week

Ironically, the phrase "semen white" applies in both contexts.


Thanks to everyone that has participated thus far. I'll be updating the bracket below with some results from the early rounds later tonight, so stay tuned for that!