I don’t think anyone who was of draft age wouldn’t remember that night. To my knowledge it wasn’t even on TV but on the radio and if I remember correctly Ted Kennedy pulled the ping pong balls. I was at our apartment in Landmark with my roommate Bill who was also a Phi. We had our beers and listened as they called out the numbers. The later it got, the better you felt physically and mentally. Once it got into the 200s I felt pretty good about things and ended up with 256. We left the apartment and went to the house where someone had bought a keg and everyone proceeded to tie one on. The guys with the low numbers got drunk because they knew they were going to Vietnam, the ones in the middle were scared where the cutoff would be so they got drunk too, and those of us with high numbers, well we really partied. I remember that Greg who was a brother got number 1 but the rumor was that his dad owned the building that the draft board was in and he would never go. I have often wondered if he ever got drafted. He was older than I was and I lost track of him after he graduated.
(Editor’s note: Ted Kennedy did not participate in the lottery but you can see video coverage by Roger Mudd and CBS via a link on the LINKS page of the website).