Remembering The Time Rob Gronkowski Fought 8 Frat Dudes In College After Stealing One Of Their Girls

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Before Rob Gronkowski was a universally known athletic and culture force, he was an unproven, slightly-less-massive freshman at the University of Arizona.

Here is a photo of Gronk doing Gronk things somewhere between 2007-2009.

https://twitter.com/OrlandoRVargas/status/241261842729693185

Back then, Gronk wasn’t the household name he is today, but you’d have to have a couple screws loose to try to test your physical prowess against a man of his size. Every frat dude at the University of Arizona knew this, that’s why one dude needed to recruit seven of his friends to confront Gronk, who he felt was encroaching on his territory.

Gronk recalls this noteworthy altercation in his 2015 book titled It’s Good To Be Gronk. Enjoy.

It was great having the hot sorority girls party with us at Club G, but it pissed off the frat guys who were supposed to be getting with them. Fraternities and football players don’t get along; that’s just the way it is on college campuses. I had made a mistake as a freshman in going by myself to one particular frat party. Some frat guy’s girl was getting overly friendly with me and the guy didn’t like it. I didn’t know it at the time, but these guys had it out for me. After having a few drinks, I went to the bathroom to take a leak. When I came out, no less than eight guys jumped me and hit me with whatever they could get their hands on.

Chris and Justin weren’t there, I was by myself in enemy territory and that was a big problem. My first thought, other than wondering what hit me, was that I didn’t want to get into trouble with my coach and get suspended. My second thought was to get the hell out of there. I instinctively punched, kicked, and threw four of the guys out of my way, but a bunch more guys jumped on me. Guys were coming at me from behind and from all angles; it was a battle to get out of there. Eventually eight of them got me to the ground and I was taking kicks everywhere, but our quarterback, Willie Tuitama, was there, and when he saw what was going on, he helped get me out of there. The girl I had been friendly with told me that I looked like the Hulk throwing four dudes off me.

She loved it and definitely made it up to me later. So other than a slight black eye, I didn’t really get hurt, but still I never made that mistake again of being solo in enemy territory.

When I told Chris, Gord, and Justin what happened, they went nuts. The whole team found out right away and went down there to beat the hell out of each and every one of those frat guys. When we got there, Chris and Gord were screaming at them to come and fight. They wouldn’t come out; they were scared to death. We made sure not to step on their property so they couldn’t get us in trouble with the cops, but they called the cops on us anyway and we had to get out of there.

Gronk would go on to write that a few weeks later, he and 10 football players finally confronted 30 frat dudes after a 6’5” frat guy threw a full beer at his friend’s head.

There was blood flying, bodies getting slammed, alcohol spilling, and women screaming everywhere.

While I was body-slamming a guy into the side of a car, another frat guy knocked me into the car, and I banged my elbow pretty hard, but other than that, the worst injury we had was Justin’s black eye.

The other frat houses hated that frat, so those frat boys were cheering us on as we were beating the other ones’ butts. The cops got there but we got home, our shirts bloodied, and didn’t get into trouble. That was the last fight I’ve gotten into, but it ranks as the all-time best.

An all-time legend.