It was 1998. Matthew Matlack, Columbia ’00, and I turned off 113th Street and headed north up Amsterdam. The streetlights buzzed as we walked through the autumn air in the greatest city on earth, New York. We needed to find a guy named Steve Hofstetter, ’02.

Steve was a tall, red-headed Jewish guy from Queens. He was oddly confident which was both appealing and annoying. The popular sports website he had started got bought out by either Sports Illustrated or ESPN. We needed to know him. Dotcoms were on a rapid growth trajectory, and so were we.

“Hofstetter’s Sports Jerk of the Week” highlighted memorable athletes doing something memorably foolish. The posts were pretty well written, informative even. To build his brand awareness, Steve pretty much stole the NBA logo and put a jackass in place of the player. Genius. He owned the coveted 18-25 male market segment.

We finally reached his apartment. Steve was smiling. He’s probably the happiest sarcastic person I know. We thought that Steve could help us with a culture that thrived on being different, given his own penchant for the off-kilter. We asked him to be a SigEp.

Steve quickly rose to take the helm of our little start-up, New York Phi, and set it on a fast pace to success. He was chapter president when we won our first Buchanan Cup. Our hunch was paying off, and that was only the beginning.

Steve brought big ideas to the National Board as a student director—even a crazy one about, “an online, social yearbook that would only be for SigEps or people they specifically asked to join.” Yeah, over five years ahead of Facebook. Oops.

Steve threw another curveball in his junior year: “I’m taking next year off of school to work for the Yankees.” And that’s Steve. That borderline crazy in him makes other people wonder what path he’s on. SigEp did that for him. He did that for SigEp. He may have done it for the Yankees. They won a World Series that year.

A few years later, he wrote to some of us saying, “My first stand-up comedy gig is in a few weeks. Any chance you can come?” You want to be a what? A comedian? His first set was in the basement of a dive on Broadway called The Underground Lounge. We were ready to put on the laugh track for Steve’s benefit. Nothing too overt, just enough to drown out the crickets after the punchline bombed.

Then, gut-busting laughs were bouncing off the walls. From the paying customers who came for the comedy, not the comedian. Steve was good. Really good. You could feel the start of something big.

As Steve toured colleges big and small, he sought out the SigEp chapter. He said, “My first year on the road, I spent a great deal of time on couches and in spare bedrooms. Before I could even afford a Red Roof Inn, I could always find a red door.”

He got the brothers free tickets to his show, when he was basically working for free to build his punchlines. And street cred. Tough duty for a Jewish kid from Queens who never had a driver’s license. Unless you were Steve. Then it just took time. Steve slogged. He ground it out, gig after gig, when most people would have quit. He eventually bought Morty’s Comedy Club in Indianapolis. (There’s a joke in there somewhere.)

Steve’s accolades include over 21 million YouTube views and a No. 1 album. He’s appeared on CBS’ Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and on Showtime’s White Boyz in the Hood.

And now, he’s host and executive producer of “Laughs” on Fox Networks. As he tackles this next exciting gig, Steve has not forgotten what SigEp did for him. “I always said if things got really big, I would show how grateful I was for SigEp,” said Steve. So when he chose his tie colors for his new comedy show, he knew what to do. “Purple and red were the colors that got me here, and there is no way I would choose anything else.”