Springtime brings flowers that blossom and let it all hang out, and in 1974, many University students followed suit.
Streaking became a national craze in the ’70s as disrobed revelers invaded various sporting events and college campuses across the country. The most notable incident of the time was when a fully exposed man paraded through the 1974 Academy Awards as a presenter introduced film star Elizabeth Taylor.
Darrel D. Colson, 1977 philosophy alumnus and current president of Wartburg College, said the campus mirrored the national trend.
“It was a crazy spring,” Colson laughed, as he reminisced on the “silly” springtime antics of 1974.
Colson remembered the frequency of bare bodies running through campus without care. He said he believed one reason for the seemingly spontaneous outbreak of nudity was the end of the Vietnam War and the realization that the chance of being drafted was finally over.
“It didn’t seem to be a protest or demonstration of anything,” he said. “It just seemed like an enjoyment of springtime weather and freedom.”
While students may have been enjoying their time in the buff, Colson said University police chief A.L. “Luke” McCoy was not entertained. Colson described McCoy’s unrelenting mission to stop the nude antics as a game of “cat and mouse.”
“A streaker would run through the library one night, and the next day Chief McCoy would be interviewed and he’d have some new plan to capture streakers,” Colson said. “It was comical to watch.”
Colson, who never streaked himself, said almost everyone regarded the activity as playful and innocent.
“It certainly was not viewed as threatening, nor scandalous or obscene,” he said. “It wasn’t a mature activity, but not socially disgraceful.”
Linda Colquitt Taylor, a 1974 merchandising alumna, shared the same view, candidly depicting her own witness of streaking in the LSU Alumni Association memory book and blog.
“It was just after suppertime at the sorority house on the lakes when a sister yelled out, ‘The streak is coming down the road! Everyone to the front yard,'” Taylor wrote.
Taylor rushed outside, along with 50 of her sisters, to watch as a herd of scantily clad men ran full speed down the street. She said she and her sisters stood in awe as they gazed at the fully exposed men.
Taylor, who “had never seen such a sight,” marveled at the crowd, noticing the diversity of the naked members. She recalled “big ones” and “little ones,” but the most shocking thing she saw was a woman on a chair held up by two poles.
“She was like the Roman goddess with a wreath of flowers on her head and totally naked, flopping her Northern Hemisphere while the men were flopping their Southern Hemisphere,” she wrote.
University students get their own dose of bare-thread revelry each year during the Undie Run, where underwear-clad students run across campus before finals week. After, participants donate clothes to the battered women’s shelter.
Nick Romero, chemical engineering junior, ran in seven of the nine Undie Runs in his college career. He said the event is a good way to forget about the woes of college.
“You pretty much forget about what’s going on in school and have a good time before finals,” Romero said.
Romero said he is amused but not surprised by the prevalence of streaking in the ’70s and said a resurgence of the fad isn’t unlikely.
“I’m not so sure if anybody would streak [now], but you never know, it’s college,” he said. “It may happen