Each year, questions arise regarding the factors that affect a Step Sing show’s chance of winning Sweepstakes. Are you a girls’ group, or a guy’s group? Greek or independent? Is funding, costuming or prop use determining factors?
And, finally, does a Step Sing show’s placement in the lineup determine its chances at winning Sweepstakes?
Besides the fact that Freshman Ladies open the first half of the show and Freshman Girls the second, the Step Sing Committee randomizes the order of the performances. Is luck of the draw that crucial to any given group’s success?
After taking a look through Step Sing programs in Samford’s Special Collections to find out the placement of each year’s winner, it would appear that the answer is yes; it’s been over a decade since a show from the first half won Sweepstakes. And since the year 2000, only two — that’s right, two out of twenty-five — Sweepstakes winners have been shows that performed in the first half of Step Sing.
Sigma Chi’s “The Original Fraternity” won in 2008 after performing fifth out of 13, and Pi Kappa Phi’s “Ne=r2dΣ” won in 2013 after going second in that year’s lineup of 14.
“There was a lot of pressure building up to that year, of really feeling like we needed to win,” said Taylor Horneman, one of the directors of “Ne=r2dΣ” in 2013.
The 2013 Step Sing season was preceded by a Dudes-A-Plenty Sweepstakes three-peat, and Horneman shared that his goal for himself and his fraternity brothers was to craft a show that could compete with the creativity the independent groups were bringing to the table.
“There was kind of this idea of the golden past,” said Horneman, referring to Pi Kapp’s previous win in 2009. “How could we get a good show again so that we can actually beat the independents? Because they were a much more creative, artistic community, and they just made really incredible Step Sing shows each year.”
“Ne=r2dΣ” follows the story of students at a fictional school called Caroline High. It portrays the struggle of the nerds versus the jocks, using songs like “It’s The Hard Knock Life” and “They Don’t Care About Us” to illustrate the strife. But throughout the show, the nerds and the jocks learn how to get along with each other, and the show ends with all the students peacefully singing “Sweet Caroline” together.
In the pre-show video, the fraternity’s other director, John Hunsicker, said that the concept for that show had existed for years ahead of time — and that hard work and dedication shows in the performance. The show itself, from the perspective of skill and production quality, could contend with shows that groups perform today.
In the end, it was creativity, teamwork and dedication that allowed “Ne=r2dΣ” to beat the odds and bring home Sweepstakes in 2013.
Staff Reporter
