It’s a typical Saturday night, 10:30 pm, too early for Toad’s. Where is the average male athlete? Chances are he’s at DKE or ADPhi, probably playing pong and hopefully not breaking things. These two fraternities are the hubs of social life for athletes from across the spectrum of Yale sports. ADPhi has mostly lacrosse, squash, heavyweight crew, and a few sailors, and DKE has football, baseball, crew, golf, and soccer. A brief caveat: Zeta is also a major athletic fraternity at Yale, made up mostly of football and basketball players, but its members are mostly unreachable and its president explicitly declined to be interviewed—probably something to do with the incident Zeta had with the Women’s Center two years ago. Anyway, ADPhi and DKE provide a place for sportsmen to escape the pressures of Yale, to bond with their teammates outside the context of practices and games and with members of other teams and non-athletes, and, of course, to party.

Many of the athletes who join ADPhi or DKE do so because they were encouraged by older members of their teams. Jerome Arnold, BK ’10, midfielder on the lacrosse team and member of ADPhi, joined because “the older guys on the team told [him] what a great bonding activity it was.” According to James Murphy, MC ’11, president of ADPhi, this is pretty much always how it goes. Freshmen come to the house with their older teammates, find that they really like drinking with their teammates, and decide to pledge. “Our recruitment pretty much takes care of itself,” said Murphy. Lacrosse player tells lacrosse player, squash player tells squash player, and so on. ADPhi has recruited its members in this manner since the fraternity’s refounding in 1990, although it was solely a football frat for its initial years.

Other athletes join these fraternities because they are looking for a larger circle of friends. This holds especially true for members of smaller teams, such as squash or golf. Seve Gonzales, SM ’10, member of the golf team, said that he joined DKE because the golf team has only 10 people, not all of them partiers, and he wanted “another group of sweet dudes to chill with.” David Soiles, PC ’10, and member of the Yale track team, agrees with Gonzales on why he joined DKE, but for the novelty, saying. “I had a few friends in the frat already, and when I was rushing I realized they were the kind of people I liked,” Soiles said. Athletes, because they all have so much in common, tend to join DKE since it is, according to its president, Grant Todd, BR ’10, “the athletic frat” on campus. It has held that reputation at least since George H.W. Bush, DC ’48, was its president in 1947. Bush was captain of the baseball team as well, clearly establishing the DKE-athletics connection.

Whereas ADPhi and Zeta draw their brothers predominantly from Yale sports teams, DKE still actively recruits non-athletes. 25 percent of DKE brothers do not play a sport because, as Todd explains, “Athletes in DKE want to expand their friendships beyond just other athletes.” However, ADPhi isn’t just some athlete clique, as Arnold explains: “Not only do we have many non-athletes that are members of ADPhi,” he said, “but also most athletes at Yale have numerous non-athlete friends.”

When it comes down to it, fraternities are, quite simply, places to chill with the brothers, athlete or non, and to forget about school. “On an individual basis, athletes are intimidated by the academic culture of Yale and by the stress of classes and practice. They like to get away from it all, even if just a block away on Lake Place,” said Todd. But as heartwarming as all of this athlete bro-love is, what about drinking?

PARTYING, AND BY THIS I mean drinking, heavily, is the sine qua non of fraternities at Yale. If you have ever been to DKE Tang, you know just how many athletes are in these fraternities and how much beer they can chug before, and after, vomiting. For those of us too lazy to actually play a sport, alcohol and sports go together like puppies and sunshine. One might expect, however, for athletes to abstain from hitting the bottle so hard. After all, athletes are supposed to stay in shape, and beer is a notorious bringer of headaches, indigestion, and guts, none of which is especially conducive to athleticism. But considering DKE’s of Hazard, ADPhi’s Toga Party, Zeta’s Rad Party, and the nonsensical debauchery that goes on at every single tailgate, we can dismiss this assumption out of hand. Athletes in fraternities party hard.

The more pressing issue is whether athletes ever allow alcohol to negatively affect their effort in games and in practice. “The fraternity does not negatively affect my performance during games. We don’t go out 48 hours before games and for the most part in season I only go out that night after games.” Arnold said. “So, I have never had to deal with a loss in performance due to that.” He was referring to the “48-hour rule” every varsity athletic team at Yale requires its members to abide by. In essence, coaches tell their teams not to drink for 48 hours before a game and, in general, athletes in these fraternities claim to follow this rule to its letter.

But not everyone follows all the rules all the time. Soiles said that his coach chewed him out for being tired in practice the day after an event during Inspiration Week, DKE’s version of a hell week, but also said that the schedules for DKE and track no longer conflict. Another, a former member of DKE and the track team, class of ’09, alluded to his guilt in the matter. In response to the question, “Has being in a fraternity ever negatively affected your performance during a game?” he said: “Possibly, but nothing stands out in my mind.” Athletes do break the 48-hour rule from time to time, but with minimal negative effect.

Fraternities themselves also try to accommodate the practice and game schedules of their athlete members so that breaking the 48-hour rule never becomes a problem. DKE always keeps in mind the football team’s schedule, foregoing Late-Night on Wednesdays after Toad’s because of early-morning practice on Thursdays, and never holding big parties when there is a home game the next day. “The football guys need to sleep,” said Todd, recognizing the demands varsity sports place on athlete brothers.

ADPhi does the same for its lacrosse players. “If we have a lax game the next day, no one can drink, so we won’t have a party,” said Murphy. Both presidents make clear that the coaching staffs of the sports teams have been largely hands-off when it comes to the membership of their athletes in fraternities. They attribute this to the frats’ successful reconciling of partying with team schedules. “Coaches don’t get involved with activities off the field unless something happens that affects the team or a player,” said Murphy. “We haven’t had any issues that have required any coach’s involvement. We do sometimes get falsely blamed for things, but that’s rare and works itself out.” Essentially, if an athlete drinks too much and plays poorly as a result, it’s on his own ass, not his fraternity’s.

However, the damage drunk athletes cause to a fraternity house is usually far greater than the damage they cause to their athletic teams. Combining high testosterone and large quantities of alcohol often means serious property damage. “Stuff gets broken at ADPhi all the time. A few weeks ago we repaired the ceiling in the basement. There are holes in the wall, although not as many as at DKE,” said Murphy. “There’s glass all over the backyard; tables are body-slammed then burned in the fire pit. The upstairs bathroom has half a door—nothing too bad. The house is pretty durable, except for the occasional table that gets thrown out of the second floor common room,” said Murphy.

The DKE house often deals with broken keg taps, windows, and the occasional steel beam that gets kicked in. The house also gets about 25 holes in its walls per year and holes in the floor from beer-rotted wood. DKE, for one, is trying to keep its house in better shape. The brothers had a dry-wall party a few weekends ago, and Todd said, “Last year, it was the culture of DKE to break things, but this year we’ve nipped it in the bud.” This year, Todd reports, things at the house are mostly broken by people from outside the fraternity. Todd felt strongly that things were going to change at DKE despite the damage inflicted on the house already this year.

DKE is attempting to reform its ways, while ADPhi still has an appetite for destruction. But who could blame them? Wrecking stuff is fun. (Happens all the time at the Herald.)

ULTIMATELY, WHAT MAKES ADPHI and DKE special for the athletes who join is the people. They could drink anywhere, if they wanted. There is a swim house, a heavy-weight crew house, and a rugby house. The members of DKE, ADPhi, and Zeta could simply divide up by sports team and live in their own houses, but they don’t. Fraternities hold something special for athletes, an extra element of belonging that they can’t get from just their sports teams alone. Many athletes spoke of fraternities bringing their teams closer together than just practices and games—perhaps only alcohol lubricated-fun can forge such a bond.