My first rush as an initiated brother was good. I brought out a few guys who would become good brothers. However, that class had an opportunity to be great, but I dropped the ball.
A friend of mine from high school was attending the same college as I was. We were not very close friends, but probably would have been had we had the opportunity to hang out more. He was a great guy, and would be a great asset to any fraternity.
My friend had not joined a fraternity his first semester of college like I did. He was going through rush his second semester. I knew he was going through rush, but I never asked him to rush my fraternity.
I am not sure why I was hesitant to invite him to a rush event. I had joined a good fraternity, and had enjoyed what I knew to that point. I was not hesitant in the least about inviting strangers to rush. It was strange I didn’t invite my friend.
I think the biggest reason why I didn’t invite him was because I didn’t want to put a friend in a situation where he may have to say no. Like I said, we were casual friends. Recruiting him to join my fraternity felt pushy for me at the time and I wasn’t really comfortable doing it.
Looking back though, I made a big mistake. My friend would go on to join a different fraternity. He would become their fraternity president and lead their fraternity to successes they had not had previously.
A few years later he asked me why I didn’t ask him to join my fraternity. I attempted to explain to him the reason, but that only seemed to confuse both of us. He let me know he would have joined our fraternity out of respect for me. He figured if I had liked the fraternity, then he would have like it as well.
By not asking him to rush, my fraternity lost out on a good brother and I lost out on a good friend.
I share this story because it is imperative that older brothers teach young brothers to not be afraid to invite their friends to rush events. Older brothers may think that it is common sense that new brothers should invite their friends to rush. It isn’t! Fraternity recruitment is confusing for newly initiated brothers. Take the time to teach these brothers how to recruit. Your fraternity will be better for it.
To learn more, check out our most in-depth article on fraternity recruitment: The Complete Guide to Fraternity Recruitment.