Former University of Colorado football player and current coach helped bring Black fraternity back on campus
Since Deion Sanders has been on campus, there has been plenty of change for the Colorado Buffaloes football team. One of his coaches on staff has been making his mark on campus before the Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback made his way to Boulder.
Joshua Jynes, a former Buffaloes center from 2018-21, helped usher the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. back on campus, becoming the first historically Black fraternity to return and officially register at CU Boulder in November 2022.
"I didn't look into it because I assumed every college had, you know, fraternities. So, Black fraternities and sororities," Jynes said. "When I got on campus, I was looking for it and they was like, they didn't have it."
The popular Black fraternity was founded in 1911 at Howard University and was prominent on CU's campus in the 1990s. Omega Psi Phi runs through the family as Jaynes' father and uncle are a part of the fraternity. His uncle made a call to his fraternity brother De'Ron Jasper, who works as the assistant athletic director and in assistant services and operations at CU.
"He was like 'oh, I wanted to be an Omega, but he didn't know at the time that Omegas were even around," Jasper said. "And I had the opportunity to already kind of gauge him and I was like I can see him fitting in. How he could help."
Working with Jasper and TJ Labree, the trio was able to obtain provisional status on campus through the fraternity and sorority life. The process took a year to complete in 2022.
"I think it's important to just to have that representation so that they can say, 'hey, I have the opportunity. I see it's there and if I want to strive to be in that then I have the opportunity to do that,'" Jasper said.
Omega's four cardinal principles are manhood, scholarship, perseverance and uplift. Jynes hopes to see more Omega men living that out on campus in purple and gold.
"Always having a brother to lean on. Always having someone to call when things get tough. I can always do that and that's something that I think is the foundation of the fraternity and I think it's something that we really rely on. I really enjoy that," Jynes said.