Sophomore Glenn Harvey said it’s odd if there aren’t several parties at the sport houses on the weekend.

While Harvey said sport houses are not like Cornell fraternities, they’re the places where there are consistently good parties.

“They’re huge parties, especially at the baseball and football houses, with several hundred people. You really can’t move,” he said.

After the death of a student in a hazing incident in 1980, the college re-examined the role of social fraternities and sororities, said Dave Maley, director of media relations.

In 1993, the college decided not to recognize any new social fraternities. Maley said the college decided Greek organizations had the potential to create an unhealthy environment for students. The last social sorority recognized by the college was Delta Phi Zeta, which disbanded in 1997.

The college recognizes four music and performing-arts fraternities. Junior Zach Ford, a member of the Mu Phi Epsilon music fraternity, said they gear toward preparing students to become professional musicians. The college requires these frats to comply with Greek-life policy, which prohibits association with drugs and hazing.

Though Maley said Ithaca College is unusual because it lacks typical Greek organizations, he said the college is ahead of the trend because many institutions are moving toward restricting Greek life.

Senior Mike Phelps, who lives in the “swim house,” said the sport houses off campus have taken an important role in the social scene because of the lack of fraternities.

“If there were frats all over the place, they would be having parties all the time and I would be willing to bet a lot of people living in sports houses would have joined frats instead,” he said.

Mike Quinn, a senior on the football team, lives on Kendall Avenue with his teammates. He said there are five other football houses on Kendall and Pennsylvania avenues that throw parties and barbecues after games.

“The parties don’t get real out of hand, but they get large in number,” he said.

Like some fraternities, the football team also participates in community service. It helps out at local football camps for young kids and has a semi-formal dance. Quinn said the team is similar to a frat, but the teammates share a closer bond because of all the time they spend together.

“Teams are a lot like families, and teams get to know each other real well because everyone has the same interests,” he said.

Eleven percent of students play on varsity sports teams, said Ken Kutler, director of athletics and recreational sports. Many of the older athletes have off-campus housing where they hold parties and other events, he said.

Athletes said most upperclassmen teammates live together, but none of the houses require anyone to live in the team house.

“It’s not that we encourage it, it’s just what they want to do,” Quinn said.

Phelps said he couldn’t imagine college life without the teammates he lives with.

“From the first day that I got here I was hanging out with swim guys pretty much all the time,” he said.

Phelps lives with members of his team on East State Street. He said the whole team comes to party at their house after meets. Kutler said while hazing and initiation happens in fraternities and sports teams, it isn’t an issue here.

“The trend of hazing is to put people into embarrassing situations,” he said. “It hasn’t been a problem here, but we talk about it vigorously with the coaches and pass it on to the student athletes.”

Athletes at the college say initiation rites aren’t a problem. “We want [freshmen] to be involved with the team,” Phelps said. “If anything, we’re too nice to the freshmen.”

Senior Pat Engle, co-commodore of the crew team, said just making it to practice is enough of an initiation for the freshmen on the crew team.

“You meet a hundred new people every year, but it’s a closer community than a fraternity because you have more common experiences than people who might just be frat brothers,” Engle said.