61. A lasting legacy at USC.

I'm not gonna lie. I had a pretty remarkable four years at the incomparable University of Southern California.

To wit: I spent two years playing tenor sax in the renowned Trojan Marching Band (which, incidentally, performed with Radiohead on "15 Step" at tonight's Grammys!), spent countless hours creating content for the school's TV/webcast station (including a year as host--ooh, slightly-embarrassing link!--of the university's award-winning interview show), interned at two high-profile television networks, was inducted into the university's top honor society, welcomed thousands of incoming students to the university as both an Orientation Advisor and Coordinator, took the University President's über-selective leadership class, and won the title of "Mr. USC" (essentially, the school's version of Homecoming King) during my senior year.

I say all of that not so much to brag (OK, well, maybe a little), but rather to underscore the significance of the statement I'm about to make:

The most rewarding and meaningful thing I did in my kinda-ridiculously-awesome college career was--far and away--to help start up the USC chapter of a Christian fraternity, Alpha Gamma Omega.

Yesterday we celebrated the eight year anniversary of our chapter's charter. Which is slightly mind-blowing; it certainly doesn't feel like it's been eight years.

Oh, but what a difference those eight years have made, both for me personally, and for the fraternity.

When our journey started nine years ago (we started in January 2000, spending the first year as an AGO "colony"), I was a freshman at SC. Still a bit wet behind the ears, but slowly getting the hang of the whole "college" thing. And though I'd already made some great friends, the other 10 guys who were my co-laborers in starting AGO quickly became my best friends. Even now, nine years later, I share a room with one of those guys, and am in near-daily contact with several others.

And even apart from those 11 initial founding members (five more joined us later in the year, for a grand total of 16 founding members), the guys in my life whom I consider to be my closest friends are almost exclusively AGO brothers.

More than a place to make friends, though, AGO was also vital to my personal growth. I learned a lot about leadership, humility, accountability, and sacrifice in the 3.5 years spent building the fraternity. I was given opportunities to deal with finances, mentor younger guys, lead Bible studies, run business meetings, plan events, and--yes--spend time with the fairer sex (I mean, we were a fraternity, after all).

As for the fraternity itself? Well, it's grown into something pretty amazing, succeeding beyond our wildest dreams. And at a pretty remarkable clip, too.

When we started, we'd hold meetings in dorm rooms and empty classrooms on campus. Del Taco was the first caterer, so to speak, of our Monday Night dinners/meetings; we eventually started cooking our own meals (which, truth be told, was probably not quite the step up from Del Taco that we'd imagined), and found a semi-permanent spot on campus to hold weekly meetings.

From the get-go, we had approached USC administrators about the possibility of university recognition, an already-arduous process due to the USC Greek System's formidable standing as one of the nation's best. It was even more difficult for us, though, as an organization whose raison d'être was to be a visibly Christian house on Greek Row. At one point in our talks, the university administrators even warned us of the unlikelihood of their ever granting us official university recognition.

So in those halcyon years of 2000 and 2001, we were pretty much relegated to renegade status, flying just under the radar of all but those who knew us AGO brothers personally. We put together a few events with other Greek houses, but there wasn't any sense that we were a legitimate fraternity. Nor did it seem likely that our frat would amount to much of an influential presence on campus.

But we grew, both in terms of the numbers of guys who joined, and in terms of our influence and standing on campus. By the time I graduated--having spent the final year as the chapter president (which was truly one of the greatest honors I've ever had)--we had somewhere in the vicinity of 40 active members. We'd also started building a real presence on Greek Row, even though we were still an unofficial student organization. We'd paired up with an established sorority on campus to win Songfest, the school-wide song-and-dance competition, in my junior year--an amazing feat, considering it was our first time out (as well as--again--that pesky issue of not-being-university-sanctioned). And in my senior year, a bunch of us took over a converted house on Greek Row, creating something of an actual, physical AGO presence on the Row.

It wasn't much. But it seemed like we'd come a long ways in three and a half years' time.

Since then, though, the fraternity has simply exploded. Our numbers have grown. The diversity of our guys has broadened. And the influence on campus has grown and grown and grown.

AGO received the thing that we founders had fought so hard for--official university recognition--within a year or two of my graduation. An official induction (and warm welcome) into the inter-fraternity council soon followed. As did an actual house on the Row. Our guys started winning "Greek Man of the Year;" the house, "Fraternity of the Year." We stacked up an unprecedented string of four consecutive Songfest wins.

Like I said, our fraternity has come along a lot further--and a lot faster--than we possibly could've imagined.

So it was a real treat to stop by the house yesterday afternoon to celebrate with the guys. I met guys whose membership numbers are in the 150's (for what it's worth, mine is #7). I met guys nearly ten years my junior who are in my "family" line. And I chatted with dozens of guys, all of whom know me as "one of the founding fathers" (they treat me with a certain reverence and awe, which is nice, until they soon realize how undeserving I am of such obsequiousness).

And in the course of all, I just felt incredibly, incredibly humbled. I had a hand in starting this wonderful, thriving, blessed organization. And it's a legacy I am so incredibly proud to have left at USC.