Ramblin' Reck Club
The Ramblin' Reck Club was founded in 1930 as the Yellow Jacket Club to help bolster school spirit. The Yellow Jacket Club helped facilitate the Freshman Cake Race and helped to organize the first Wreck Parades in 1932. The Yellow Jacket Club were the strict student enforcement of the freshmen RAT rules as well. The Yellow Jacket Club maintained prestige and political power on campus until late 1944. The Yellow Jacket Club was in charge of the 1945 school-wide Spring Social and failed to properly organize the event. The Technique, Blueprint, and Omicron Delta Kappa rejuvenated the major event but the Yellow Jackets' reputation was severely tarnished. On May 8, 1945 the Yellow Jacket Club staged a last-ditch effort to reorganize the traditions club but by July 14, 1945 the club was disbanded.
When new freshmen arrived on campus in 1945, the student body was concerned that traditions would be lost with the disbandment of the Yellow Jackets. A new traditions club was actively pursued by Anak to instill the rich Tech tradition into new freshmen. The new club was the Ramblin' Reck Club and it was established in late July 1945. The first order of business for the new Ramblin' Reck Club was to stage a Pep Meeting and traditions review for new freshmen. Reck Club was designed to prevent political domination by individual social fraternities as Yellow Jacket Club had been. Membership in Reck Club was limited to two individuals per fraternity or military ROTC program. A group known as the T-Club was charged with upholding the RAT rules with incoming freshmen.
Four years after Tech became coed, Reck Club became the first non-faith based organization on campus to admit a female member. Paula Stevenson was the club's first female member in 1956. Under Reck Club, the strict RAT rules slowly faded away. Anti-hazing laws severely diminished Reck Club's ability to punish Tech freshmen for disobeying the RAT rules in 1965. By 1967, the Club was given a more wholesome duty.
Reck Club was given charge of the Ramblin' Wreck in 1967 following the disbandment of the Student Council's Reck Committee. A member from Reck Club known as the Wreck Driver has been elected annually since 1967 to drive the Wreck onto Grant Field for football games and other school functions.
Reck Club was the first group to make attempts at humanoid mascots on Tech Campus. The first was a bee costume donned by Judi McNair of Reck Club. She sported her bee costume to home basketball games and pep rallies. In 1973, a spandex-clad hero named T-Man and his faithful sidekick T2 patrolled campus in search of opposing mascots and fans. T-Man would perform spirit skits at pep rallies and home basketball games. Often seen riding in the Ramblin' Wreck, T-Man was an anonymous member of the Reck Club until his mysterious disappearance in 1975.
The Ramblin' Reck Club today oversees several homecoming traditions such as the Freshman Cake Race, the Mini 500, and the Wreck Parade. Reck Club also serves as a bridge between Georgia Tech Athletics and the Georgia Tech student body organizing the Swarm cheering section, pep rallies, flashcards sections, and other spirit related events.
Read more about this topic: Georgia Tech Traditions/to Do, Traditions, Spirit Organizations
Famous quotes containing the words reck and/or club:
“What is well done, I feel as if I did; what is ill-done, I reck not of.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have ourselves to answer for.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, pp. 24-5 (January 1870)