Emotions ran high at the Tugs championship matches Saturday as Pi Kappa Alpha (Pikes) defeated Phi Sigma Kappa.

“Real men don’t wear jeans!” shouted a Pikes fan, insulting Phi Sigma Kappa’s Tugs uniforms of black t-shirts with jeans.

“They’re designer, baby!” a Phi Sigs member smugly replied.

Every Tugs team creates its own uniform for the competition. The Pikes wore yellow and maroon baseball pants, baseball socks and their fraternity letters on yellow T-shirts, with the initials “DP” on the left breast in honor of Dan Parmenter, a member of their fraternity killed in the Feb. 14 shootings.

Once the fraternity won its 30th first-place championship match, many of the Pikes tuggers ripped off their outer T-shirts to reveal a blue undershirt with the name “Parmenter” printed on the back.

Unlike matches earlier in the day, the Pikes’ triumph took only two ropes.

A match in Tugs consists of two games, where nine-person teams in trenches attempt to win a 20-minute contest of tug-of-war. If one of the teams wins by having more rope, the contest goes to an un-timed third round where one team must either concede or have its men lose by a drag.

“The two strategies for tugs are brute force and endurance,” said Mike Sicuro, one of the callers who coached the Sigma Pi team. “There is a lot of dedication, and it hurts.”

This year, the first-place Tugs trophy was renamed the Daniel Parmenter Memorial Trophy.

“We dedicate [the win] to Dan Parmenter … it’s all dedicated to Parmenter,” said Tony Vega, a Pikes member. “The trophy, in his name. The win, in his name. [The win] is what he would have wanted.”

The Pikes chanted Parmenter’s name as they hoisted the trophy in the air after their victory.

The event brought out over 1000 onlookers, including families and alumni from the numerous fraternities competing Saturday.

“Once one experiences the pain of [tugging], they’ll remember it forever,” said 1975 alumnus Dave Jesky as he watched his alma mater fraternity, Sigma Pi, place 5th over Sigma Nu.

“There’s nothing like this sport. Nothing like it,” said Pike alum Eric Wasowicz.

“I’ve not missed one match; I’ve got my camera skills down,” said Drumarie Krusenoski, senior industrial technology major, as she taped her brother Gary, a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon/Alpha Kappa Lambda combined team.

The Tau Kappa Epsilon team beat the SAE/AKL team after three grueling ropes.

“Tugs isn’t our thing, but we took third place and we’re happy for it,” said Craig Briars, a member of the TKE team.

Tugs is the largest single Greek event of the year, and it was hosted by the Interfraternity Council, after its previous sponsors and last year’s champions, Sigma Phi Epsilon, were suspended from NIU for two years.

According to IFC vice-president of community events Grant Greenberg, this year’s proceeds went to the Feb. 14th Memorial Fund.