TV's Geraldo Rivera gives $500K for UA park

Talk show host Geraldo Rivera has become the talk of Greek Row at the University of Arizona.

The celebrity broadcaster has donated $500,000 to the UA for a park that will bear his name on a street full of fraternity houses.

The new park on East First Street near North Cherry Avenue will commemorate the 100-year anniversary of fraternity and sorority life at the Tucson school. The UA’s first fraternity chapter was established in 1915.

A UA team that included President Ann Weaver Hart recently flew to New York City to meet with Rivera and solicit both his money and his participation in events planned to celebrate the milestone.

Rivera was approached because of “how much he values his Greek experience and his University of Arizona experience,” said Johanne Ives, UA’s head of fraternity and sorority programs

Long before he and his moustache became famous on television, Rivera — then known by his birth name Gerald Riviera — was a UA student and member of the now-defunct local chapter of Tau Delta Phi fraternity.

He graduated from the UA in 1965 with a business degree and went on to a decades-long reporting career at major networks.

Rivera became a household name in the 1980s and 1990s as a pioneer of tabloid talk television, a format that featured guests who attacked each other verbally and sometimes physically.

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He now hosts the “Geraldo Rivera Reports” show for Fox News.

In a UA news release on his recent donation, Rivera, 72, waxed nostalgic about his time on campus.

“It really is something that I find tremendous pride in honoring, in remembering and now in helping to perpetuate that century-long tradition of Greek life at the University of Arizona,” he is quoted as saying.

Rivera, who made the park donation with his wife, Erica, will be in town next month for the groundbreaking. He also will help emcee a Greek anniversary party planned during homecoming weekend, Oct. 22-24.

The UA has set up a website, uagreek100.com, with information about centennial events.

Ives, a former sorority member, said the festivities are a way to showcase the positive aspects of Greek life such as philanthropy and leadership development, which tend to be overshadowed by negative publicity about fraternity misconduct.

The UA, for example, has booted eight fraternities from campus since 2012 for chronic problems such as hazing and underage drinking.

The Geraldo Rivera Greek Heritage Park will be open to all, not just sorority and fraternity members. The park will cover about a third of an acre and include a 4,000-square-foot lawn.