A belated Founders’ Day to Tau Delta Phi. It was founded on June 22, 1910 as Phi Sigma Beta, a high school fraternity at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. At that time, DeWitt Clinton High School was a male-only school. In 1914, the fraternity took on the name Tau Delta Phi and established chapters simultaneously at the City College of New York, the New York College of Dentistry, and New York University.
At its founding, the fraternity was open to Jewish men. In 1945, the membership clause was lifted and membership was open to men of all races, colors, creed, national origin, or religious beliefs. In the 1960s, the traditionally Jewish fraternities were the first to open their membership to African Americans.
One of the members of the chapter at Syracuse University was Floyd Little, a football player. Little graduated from Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut,, having taken mainly vocational classes. He then spent two years at a prep school to get him ready for college. A November 1966 Boys’ Life magazine article profiling Little stated. “Even at the ripe old age of 24. Little has his eye fixed on the future. A ‘B’ student in Liberal Arts, he is concentrating on history, public relations and physical education, not to mention Joyce Green, an attractive speech major who wears his Tau Delta Phi fraternity pin.” (Little and Green eventually married and had two daughters. They later divorced.)
At Syracuse, Little, a running back who wore Syracuse’s legendary number 44, was a three-time All-American. In 1967, he became the first first-round draft pick to sign with the Denver Broncos of the American Football League. Little was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 2010.
