I think he'll choose his words more carefully from now on

Let me preface this by saying that until this point my college fighting career consisted of: a) being rescued from a freshman scuffle by the entire basketball team and b)getting black eyes from sucker punches thrown in random melees. All this changed my senior year.

I was one of the two African-American brothers to pledge my fraternity in the spring of '94. It wasn't a big deal because our house was pretty ethnically and religiously diverse. That was, until one night my senior year. All 70 or so brothers were down at Maggie’s (one of the finer purveyors of ale and spirits at SU) enjoying our big brother / little brother night. Basically this was the night that we got our little brothers and I was about to welcome my second little bro, Sean into the fraternity by getting him as drunk as Hell on shots of Jack. One problem stood in the way of us enjoying our night of brotherhood, however. Three or four drunken fools from SUNY Oswego who had come down to visit their buddies at Syracuse were looking for a fight. Several things were wrong with this roving pack of fools' plan.

1. They decided to sneak into a bar that was closed for a private party.

2. The bar was filled with about 60 seasoned salty brothers and 10 pledges hell bent on doing ANYTHING to preserve the honor of the house.

3. The bar was also occupied by our dates, who regardless of looks, we were hell-bent on impressing and then trying to bang.

4. 98% of the bar staff was in our fraternity

5. Once inside the bar they decided to start with my roommate Terry who is about 6'2" and has the typical sunny disposition of a good Irish boy raised in North Jersey (read: he is a belligerent drunken ass, prone to acts of sudden violence and general stupidity).

One of the poor Oswegans walked up to Terry and said "you stepped on my foot ....apologize." Terry looked over and promptly tld him to: "eat a dick." Oswego dude lurched toward Terry and he and his buddies were promptly shown the door by our brothers working the bar. For some unknown reason they decided to camp out on the curb outside the bar and yell how they were going to kick our asses.

At this point it was decided that someone should go and talk some sense into them in order to avoid their impending dismemberment and our ensuing suspension, fines, probation and incarceration. It was decided that this person should be me. I am not a big guy. I am 5'9" 165, but I guess the brothers thought that the fact that I am a "brother," have a deep voice (think James Earl Jones) and can usually talk sense into people in an affable way, qualified me for the job.

I went outside and told the guys that there was no way that they wanted to fight a whole fraternity and even suggested a couple of other bars that they might have fun at. There must be dangerous levels of lead in the drinking water in Oswego because the leader of this brain trust replied "Fuck you and Fuck your fraternity. We'll be here until the bar closes." I gleefully went back inside to report this unforgivable slight to the honor of our storied organization.

It was decided that we would take full advantage of our open bar and at closing time a couple of out-of-house brothers and their non-fraternity buddies would handle the situation in order to avoid the wrath of the Greek office.

Last call rolled around and a couple of brothers including myself headed out into the street with Oswego's finest in tow hurling insults. One of the larger Oswego guys got in our brother Frank's face. Frank is also around 6' 2" and can handle himself, but as we were still in full view of the bar, I grabbed Oswego from behind to keep him from starting a battle royale in the well-lit parking lot.

What this fool said next sealed his fate. He said and I quote:

"Somebody get this little ni$$er off of me!"

What happened next was a blur to me but the brotherhood tells it this way. I threw this guy twice my size to the ground, pinned him and repeatedly introduced my large fraternity ring to his temple via my fist. I apparently was screaming at him such choice phrases as "call me a ni$$er mutherfucker? What's up now?" My brothers assumed that my antics would subside in light of the fact that my target had lost consciousness and several of Syracuse's boys in blue were running up the street toward us.

I however did not notice any of this. Several of my brothers pulled me off of the guy and I, missing the sound of ring hitting flesh took to kicking him violently. By the time they finally convinced me to run away, the cops were less than half a block away. None of my brothers has ever seen me lose my shit so completely before or since this incident and that was the last time anyone messed with me in college. The amazing thing was that I don't remember anything between him mouthing off and me running.

I was told that the object of my ire remained unconscious on the sidewalk bleeding from his ear for several minutes before the ambulance took him to the hospital where it was promptly diagnosed that he would have a permanent reduction of hearing in his right ear. I only hope that this jackass now picks his words with a little more caution and I take great satisfaction that "Huh?" now permeates his speech more than the N-word does.