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Erica Upshaw hit my radar screen last year. In 2000, when she was a sophomore at Ohio State University, her brother died from an accidental overdose combination of alcohol and GHB, after a night of partying.
Joey was two years ahead of Erica, a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and pretty much your average frat guy with a bright future. Doing the "big brother thing," Joey had introduced Erica to her sorority, Delta Gamma, and to most of her friends at college. He also introduced her to hardcore college partying, and the two were out together with their shared group of friends every weekend. Mixing drugs and alcohol was a regular part of the weekend routine, along with football games, fraternity parties, and what have you.
Erica's could have just been another sad story of a loved one who died from poor choices. But, what I really liked about her approach was that she didn't spend time making a bunch of excuses for Joey, or for her own abusive partying behavior. In her program, she says that they felt like they were entitled to party hard and do whatever drinks and drugs they wanted, because they were good students.
That struck me. That was something different than what I was hearing from other alcohol speakers. So many students think that the tragedies happen only to the people spinning out of control. They don't think it happens to the attractive, well groomed, good GPA crowd.
Erica says she looks back at the way they were abusing alcohol and drugs, and she realizes (too late, I suppose) that what they thought was entirely "normal" was anything but. Erica believes that the "I've earned the right to party my ass off" mentality is quietly killing too many students. She believes that college students need to take responsibility to "Keep Friendship Alive," the title of her program.
If you want to read more about Erica, you can visit her website or check out the CAMPUSPEAK page for her. Or, friend her on Facebook. Her story and approach are very similar to that of Mark Sterner -- our most popular speaker. Both go light on the preaching and simply create awareness that we each have a personal responsibility to look out for our friends and call them on their poor choices.
Erica is brand new with CAMPUSPEAK, so her price is pretty damn low right now. It won't stay low for long as word spreads about her powerful program. I've got a pretty proven track record of picking winners in this college speaking field, and I'm picking Erica to be a big deal in a year or two. This is your chance to get her when she's building her confidence and working out the kinks in her presentation, before she's in crazy demand like Sterner. If your Greek community, in particular, needs a program on alcohol, but your tired of the risk management approach, this would be an awesome choice.
