The Sigma Chi Bond Spans the Generations

Age is Just a Number when It Comes to Sigma Chi Brotherhood

Buck and His Buttons
By David Fleming '90
From the Miamian, Winter 2010

I once tossed a football around with former RedHawk quarterback Ben Roethlisberger while standing atop the Swiss Alps peak of Jungfraujoch where – no pressure or anything – an incomplete pass from the Steelers' two-time Super Bowl champion would have fallen into a glacier 22 kilometers long. Last spring, during Miami's ultimately heartbreaking run to the NCAA hockey finals, I had a nice, long chat in a hallway below the United Center with RedHawk center Justin Mercier about – what else? – Green Beer Day. And this past summer, after a minicamp practice in Baltimore, Ravens coach and Miami graduate John Harbaugh and I spent most of our time reminiscing about Mother Miami instead of talking about the upcoming NFL season.

Yet it was a skinny, silver-haired, 85-year-old fraternity brother of mine, with a proclivity for plaid golf slacks, who taught me the real depth and power of the connection we all have to Miami.

In 2006 my wife, Kim, and I moved to the quaint little college town of Davidson, N.C., with its campus of shady slant walks and red-brick buildings. Soon after, Sigma Chi's newsletter mentioned our move and the release of my first book, Noah's Rainbow. Reading this, Robert "Buck" Jones '43, another Davidson resident, did something unheard of in our era of texts and tweets: he dialed our number and said hello.

"I believe we're fraternity brothers," he said, failing to mention our pledge classes were 48 years apart.

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