Athletic Teams Running All Laps

Title: Athletic Teams Running All Laps

Informant info: Cody Pennypacker is a member of the Class of 2018 at Dartmouth college. He is a Biology major.

Type of lore: customary, Genre: ritual

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Homecoming is a major events not just to students, but to athletic teams as well.

Item: Certain teams at Dartmouth require the freshmen on the team to run the total 100 + their class year laps around the bonfire. They will often do this together as a team.

Associated file: See interview file

Transcript: (Beginning is somewhat garbled) -There was a kid who thought it was a good idea to have like, a handle of vodka on him when he touched the fire. Also…(pause), yeah, so apparently, uhm, I’m not on either of the teams, but uh, when the freshmen run the laps around the fire…the track team runs all the laps that they have to do (garbled)…2018, so 118 laps around the fire, which comes out to be a lot of miles around this hot burning campfire in the middle of the night.

Informant’s comments: This is somewhat of an initiation for the members of this team. Everyone has done it and so they must do it.

Collector’s comments: Cody seemed bemused when he described this event to me.

Tags/Keywords: Laps, Homecoming, Bonfire, Athletic teams

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