ASU President Michael Crow will be made into a fashion symbol next week when one former ASU student reveals his new line of shirts that display a blatant disapproval for the University leader.
Miles Wickersham, a former ASU industrial design student and Phi Kappa Psi member, is in the process of fulfilling a growing number of student requests for T-shirts that show the explicit F-word next to a graphic of a crow.
The shirts initially caught the attention on a facebook.com group, which allows members to communicate in a forum about the topic.
"His last name's Crow, so how much more perfect can this be," Wickersham said. "Of course it only made sense to put this on a shirt."
Wickersham said he has since made the shirts less vulgar by dropping three letters from the logo and applying the emblem to shirts in ASU's maroon and gold colors. He is charging $10 to $15 for each shirt.
Wickersham said he has already received orders for 100 shirts and will have them ready by Monday. There will be hundreds more available for tailgaters at next week's ASU vs. California football game at Sun Devil's stadium. But Wickersham said anticipates he won't be able to fulfill the demand.
He said he thinks most people will buy the shirts because it's trendy for people to wear apparel that mocks high-ranking officials.
"People will take any excuses they want to in order to stand up to authority," Wickersham said. "The only reason I want to do this is to see a healthy profit margin."
Wickersham said he dropped out of ASU in 2006 to pursue a job in architecture, while continuing to practice his hobby of graphic design.
He said he has no lasting vendetta against Crow.
But almost all of his former fraternity brothers despise Crow, Wickersham added.
"Personally, I've never met the guy, but 99 percent of the people I talk to are like, 'ya, [explicit] Crow,'" he said.
Wickersham said he doesn't fear any retaliation from ASU officials after he unveils his product, and he encourages students that may be weary of his shirt's implied anti-Crow declaration to stand up for First Amendment rights.
Terri Shafer, an ASU spokeswoman, said the University is aware that a large number of Greek organizations are angered by a recent push to promote responsible behavior, but will not support misconduct.
"We do not believe that the behavior in which these students would like to engage is endorsed by the national organizations to which their chapters belong," Shafer said in an e-mail. "Neither do we believe these individuals represent the majority view of students who choose to affiliate with Greek organizations on campus."
But Wickersham said he doesn't agree. Even though Greek life still exists under Crow's vision for a "New American University," many fraternity's traditions have been wounded, and a handful destroyed altogether, he said.
History junior Nate Lourie was Sigma Nu's pledge class president until the Interfraternity Council — the governing body for fraternities on campus — revoked the fraternity's privileges to recruit pledges.
"My biggest beef with [Crow] here is he's essentially ruining these kids' lives by taking [pledging] away from them," Lourie said. "The T-shirts are, I think, the coolest things ever."
Lourie said he's going to be ordering 800 to 1,000 shirts next week to distribute to Sun Devil fans and anti-Crow advocates within his fraternity at the ASU football game Saturday.
But not all fraternity members share in Lourie's gripe against Crow.
Marketing senior Todd Ellinswood is a member of ASU's Sigma Chi chapter. He said ASU's president deserves the respect from the student body and should not be reduced to a mark for negative scrutiny.
"[The F-Crow shirts are] just dumb because Crow's been doing these things for the betterment of the school and it's other councils making these rules," Ellinswood said. "But I've got to admit, it's a pretty cool shirt."
Reach the reporter at: daniel.oconnor@asu.edu.
