Mike Tanoory couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Sitting among friends in a booth at the Kimmel Food Court, the pinup calendar in front of him seemed almost too good to be true.

‘These are Syracuse people?’ the junior illustrator major asked in disbelief. ‘All of them?’

He continued flipping through the pages of the 2005 College View calendar, a new calendar boasting 24 of Syracuse’s undergraduate female population posing scandalously in clothes themed for each month of the year.

‘It’s fantastic,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait until 2006.’

Matt Fried and Steve Moses like to think so. After all, they’re the brainchildren behind the College View project. Since the beginning of the academic year, the creation of the calendar has been at the forefront of their minds – ever since Moses, a sophomore finance and entrepreneurship major, approached his newfound friend Fried, a senior photography major, and pitched the idea to him.

‘I start telling him this idea,’ Moses said, ‘and he was just like, ‘I love it.”

By October the two students had begun bringing their idea to fruition. They had printed up fliers reading ‘Are you hot?’ and had posted them in the dorms and around campus.

When the responses from interested models started pouring in to Fried’s cell phone, the two knew they had a hit on their hands. Still, the two entrepreneurs, along with their third partner, Kyle Minarsky, a junior illustration major currently studying abroad in Florence, Italy, had to find the right group of models – which they found from a pool of friends and applicants ‘with the right look.’

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Fried and Moses wanted to make sure their models were comfortable with the pictures being taken, though.

‘None of these girls are models,’ Fried said, ‘For most of them, it was their first time being shot.’

They guaranteed their models there would be no nudity and nothing ‘too risqu.’ They also made sure each girl being shot was over the age of 18. They also guaranteed their models the final say on which shots made it into the final product.

Kristen Gross, a junior retail and consumer studies major, agreed to participate in the project because of her friendship with the guys behind it. Clad in a blue tank top and American flag booty shorts, Gross makes up the blonde half of the July spread.

‘I just thought it would be a really fun thing to do,’ Gross said. ‘It looks great.’

And, she claims, her parents are fine with it, too, even though she admits they probably don’t ‘really know the nature of the pictures.’ Phone calls made to her parents were unanswered.

One picture that didn’t make it into the calendar – and probably the one Fried and Moses cherish most – sits on a coffee table in Fried’s bedroom. Dated Jan. 21, the digital photo printout shows the two friends proudly smiling as they kneel on the ground, surrounded by the boxes containing their calendars.

The calendars are currently sold on Marshall Street at ZJ’s Pizza and Wings, Hair Trends and Tasti-D-Lite. So far, the sales returns have been great, Moses said, adding that even a few professors were impressed enough to purchase a calendar of their own.

Back at Kimmel, Tanoory said he could understand why.

‘It could be a little more tasteful,’ Tanoory said. ‘but … ‘

His voice trailed off. One of the photos had stolen his focus. A few moments later, though, he found his voice.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘they should probably tone it down a bit.’

Published on January 30, 2005 at 12:00 pm