After nearly 40 years of being out of touch with Gamma-Rho, Brother Sam Antcliffe has more than made up for lost times. Upon graduating from the University of Arizona in 1963, Brother Antcliffe moved around quite a bit and the chapter couldn’t keep up with his many address changes, eventually losing complete contact. As the chapter prepared for its move into the new house in 1995, one of Sam’s former college friends, a Sigma Alpha Epsilon, wondered where his information went and the chapter quickly moved to find his whereabouts.
They were more than successful.
“I had been gone awhile and renewing those old friendships was really exciting,” the now–retired Brother Antcliffe says.
He started going to luncheons and campaign meetings, and three he is being inducted into the Gamma-Rho Hall of Fame.
“At first, I was dumbfounded,” he says. “The Hall of Fame thing blew me away.”
Brother Antcliffe transferred to the University of Arizona from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and was initiated into Gamma-Rho in 1961. He was very involved with the fraternity and university, especially in athletics, as an assistant coach for Frank Sancet’s UA baseball team in 1961 and an assistant coach under Bruce Larsen’s men’s basketball team in 1962-63.
In an age where rival fraternities were closer than they are today, intramural competition was friendly but intense. Antcliffe led the Kappa Sigma team to three consecutive intramural championships.
“In those days, the intramural winners would get to play the UA freshman team before a varsity game,” Antcliffe recalls. “And we beat them!”
Together with his roommate and Gamma-Rho legend Uncle Don Harris and his other brothers, Antcliffe says he enjoyed the social side of college life, as well.
“We basically moved in, ruined the house and left,” he laughs. “The big memories are luau, especially the one where we had a ‘Roaring 20s’ theme,” he says. “We filmed it and made a movie out of it. We were dressed up as two rival mafia gangs.”
Other memories he has are trips in a U-Haul to Las Vegas and Mexico, the Greek Olympics and serenading the sororities.
Today, Brother Antcliffe is retired and living in Chandler, but is occasionally a substitute teacher at the Tempe Union High School District. Previously, he was a teacher and head basketball coach at Parker High School, at Hueneme High School in Port Hueneme, California and Oxnard College in Oxnard, California. He also served as an assistant baseball coach at Pepperdine University, Fort Lewis College in Durango, College, and the head basketball coach at Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe.
He is a member of the Arizona High School Coaches Association, National Education Association and Arizona Education Association. He’s coached two Arizona state high school basketball champions and was the Channel League ( California) Coach of the Year in 1972. In addition to Gamma-Rho events, he’s been involved in UA baseball and basketball reunions.
Brother Antcliffe has three children Lori, 46, Camille, 41, and John, 36.
“It’s very rewarding to go back and visit and see all those old friends again,” he says. “My involvement with Kappa Sigma changed my life. Having been actively involved in athletics since the seventh grade, it gave me a new outlook on life I had never experienced. It was a stepping stone to a career in teaching and coaching that I will always hold dear to my heart.”