This lawyer’s work coaching rush recruits and pageant contestants has made him a star
In the trailer for the launch of the Lifetime reality TV show A Sorority Mom’s Guide to Rush, a blue-eyed man in a lilac button-down shirt and gray suit jacket speaks directly to the camera.
“There are three important things in a mother’s life,” he announces. “The birth of her child, her daughter’s wedding day and”—the camera zooms in as he raises his eyebrows dramatically—“sorority rush.”
And he should know. That man is Bill Alverson, a veteran litigator from Andalusia, Alabama, who for decades has maintained a parallel profession: preparing women to go through the college phenomenon called sorority rush. Known as “the Rush King,” Alverson has more than 19,000 people following him for rush tips on TikTok.
The show, which aired in August and September, features 20 mother daughter pairs as they run the gauntlet of Greek organizations, often with Alverson’s help.
But this isn’t Alverson’s first foray into reality TV—or in helping young women primp for a prize. He began his coaching career with beauty pageants and has worked with five Miss America winners, five Miss USA winners, Miss Universe runners-up and countless state winners across nearly every pageant system.
His work was the focus of a 2015 TLC reality show, Coach Charming, and he was fictionalized in the Netflix series Insatiable.
Let’s rewind back to the early 1990s. You’ve graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law, clerked for an Alabama Supreme Court justice, and you successfully argued a case before the 11th Circuit. How in the world did you discover that you also happened to have a talent for coaching beauty pageant contestants?
So I sang in the choir, and one day the choir teacher came up to me and said, “Hey, would you help this girl?” She was competing in the Junior Miss pageant. She was a sweet girl—not unpopular, but clearly not in the in-crowd. Her parents were older, so she hadn’t done all the things that daughters do with country club moms or helicopter moms. I said I would help, and she came to my office and met with me. Well, she wins, and that put me on the map, coachingwise, because every competitive mom was like, “How did this girl beat all the front-runners?” Nobody—literally nobody—went into that theater thinking this girl could win, including her parents. She went on to win a junior college pageant, where she got a scholarship to go to college, and now she’s in South Florida, and her life is great. That first pageant changed her life. And that’s when I realized I could unlock opportunities for people, and I became intentional about coaching.
I’d like to talk about the pageant winner who represented a turning point in your coaching career, when your reputation vaulted from regional to national. Tell me about Scarlotte Deupree.
This is probably 1994, 1995. My coaching was growing, and I joined with a former Miss Alabama to coach contestants for the Miss Alabama pageant. Our girls were consistently making it to the top five, the top 10, and one of those girls was Scarlotte Deupree. In 2002, Scarlotte won Miss Alabama, and we worked with her and prepped her all the way to Miss America, where she got first runner-up. After that, I started getting a series of Miss Alabamas, and they were making top five at Miss America. At this point, people were saying, “Who is this guy, and what’s he doing?”
That’s amazing. How did that expand to include rush coaching?
So the whole time I’m doing this, every time I was working with someone who would be going off to college and going through rush, I’d still work with them on that too.
Your legal practice focuses mostly on family and criminal law, with some property and contract law, too. How do you balance that busy, people-centered work with your coaching? Or maybe the better question is, do you feel like you’ve achieved a balance?
I do now. My husband’s a flight attendant, and he’s gone half the month, so I have a lot of nights that I’m able to work on things so it doesn’t invade our personal relationship. This year, I decided that Sunday mornings I’ll go to my church, and then on Sunday afternoon, I won’t do anything that’s billable unless I have to. If I have a trial the next day, of course, I will plan for that, but if I don’t I piddle in the yard, play tennis or just do something away from my desk. It’s also easier now because I moved my law office into my house.
Do you have a favorite type of coaching client? For example, do you get a special satisfaction from a diamond-in-the-rough type of situation?
New sorority sisters at the University of Alabama running home on bid day. The footage is featured in Lifetime’s
“A Sorority Mom’s Guide to Rush.” (Photo courtesy of A+E Global Media)
Yes, I love helping someone who doesn’t know their own potential, or someone who’s a strong, independent thinker. I get a great sense of joy when it’s kind of like Carrie Underwood—she came from Nowhere, U.S.A., and look at her today! I have received letters going, “If I had not met you, I wouldn’t have won this pageant, I would not have gotten this scholarship, and now I’m a superintendent of schools or I’m a doctor.” But I also love working with people who come from the right ZIP code because half of them think they know everything, and I get to cross-examine them and show them how they’re not ready—I show them where they need to grow. Because ultimately, most of the people I’m working with want to succeed. That’s the joy of this TV show I’m working on now. Everybody says it’s just stories about rich girls. No, it’s not. Look at the people I’m working with on the show, and look at what we make happen by helping them realize their worth. I’m not just a pageant coach or a sorority rush coach, I’m also a life coach.
Obviously, not everyone can win a pageant or get a bid from the sorority house they want. How do you temper expectations? I don’t guarantee results, but I make the girls believe in themselves because what we’re looking at is the long term game. With teens, it’s easy because if they don’t win, they’re building up for something else: They want to go to university, to get elected to stuff on campus. We discuss goals, and we are realistic. If you tell me you want to be a doctor, but you make C’s, you’re not gonna get into med school. So what’s our weakness? What’s our strength? Where are we going? It’s very realism-driven. Your life may revolve around a crown or a sorority, but you gotta be prepared to handle life when those things don’t happen. That sometimes makes people unhappy to hear, but as I’ve told people, I’m not here to get on your Christmas card list.
As a parent yourself, be honest: Did any of the parents in this current show make you crazy?
Look, parents screw up. I’m very transparent about my life with them. You know, hell, I made mistakes—huge mistakes. But everything’s recoverable. Sometimes there are the best intentions behind it. For example, growing up, I was so skinny, my parents signed me up for karate because they felt I couldn’t defend myself, and my mother would sprinkle wheat germ over my food. She would do that with the best intentions, but all it did for me was focus on the negative. I share that with other parents because even criticism given with the best intentions can be debilitating. Parents can also be desperate for validation. Like the daughter who says she wants a pony for her 13th birthday, and the idiot mom buys one even though they don’t have a backyard. But Betsy wanted a pony, and we’re going to make her happy! Because if Betsy’s happy, I’m a good parent. But you also see great relationships with mothers and daughters on the show. That’s what’s supercool about it.
What’s the most concerning thing you’ve seen a mom do?
Create situations for social media. Like if the daughter has a date to the prom, but the date didn’t do a proper prom proposal, mom creates one so we can live our lives on social media and act as if we’re doing everything wonderfully. Well, that’s diabolical.
You live a very visible life as a reality TV star, a TikTok personality and an out gay man in a small Southern community. Have you ever experienced any negativity as a result?
Yes. I’ve had people make slurs and slams against gay people on social media, and they’ve directed things my way as well. I’ve had people throw bottles at me riding my bicycle. I have had people see me and cross to walk on the other side of the street. Yeah, OK, whatever. It happens. But then some of those very same people will call me to make a coaching appointment for their child for this interview because above all else, they want their kid to get this position or this opportunity. So they called the guy who’s good. I’ve had friends of mine tell me, you ought to shoot them the bird and tell them to f-off. And I say, what’s better than being given the minds of their children? Then I can be a passive activist and get them to open their brains to understand. Like that Broadway musical song: Be careful people, children are listening.
Is being famous kind of cool?
You know, one day I can be walking down the street, and people want to take my picture and see where I’m going, and then the next day, I’m at the Walmart in Andalusia, Alabama, and, like, who cares? Nobody’s better than you, but also you’re no better than anybody else. I think that when we keep that mindset, we can see that we’re OK in any room we want to be in.
Jenny B. Davis is a journalism professor at Southern Methodist University, a fashion stylist and former practicing attorney. Her most recent book is Style Wise, a guide for aspiring fashion stylists.
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