Title: Wearing Rugby Gear- Superstition

General Information about Item:

• Customary
  • Superstition

• English

• USA

Informant Data:

• Liam Morris is a 19 year old Male from Ridgewood NJ.  He is a sophomore at Dartmouth and Rugby player of 2 years.

Contextual Data:

• There is a lot of rugby gear that rugby players own and purchase through the team.  This gear includes workout shorts and shirts as well as sweatshirts and jackets.  Most of these items say Dartmouth rugby somewhere on them.  The administration keeps a close eye on the team, and when a player gets in trouble with the school the coaches are immediately notified.  For this reason, players are hesitant about having the team associated with drinking.

Item:

• There is a superstition that it is a bad idea to wear rugby gear when going out at night.  The idea behind this is that if you do this, the club will have bad luck.  This follows one of the structures of superstition, if A then bad B will also happen.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

 

Transcript of Associated File:

• Max Gomez: Could you tell me a little bit of background information on yourself?
• Liam: My name is Liam Morris and I am a Member of the rugby club hear at Dartmouth.
• MG: Could you tell me where you’re from?
• LM: I am from Ridgewood, New Jersey.
• MG: Could you tell me anything about Dartmouth Rugby Team superstitions?
• LM: Yeah, we have one prevailing superstition in the club, you are not supposed to wear rugby gear out at night or to parties.  There is this notion that if you are seen wearing rugby equipment out, it reflects poorly on the club, and brings the team bad luck.

Informant’s Comments:

• NA

Collector’s Comments:

• The audio on this recording is poor, but the transcript is accurate.

Collector’s Name: Max Gomez

Tags/Keywords:

• Superstition
• Gear
• Parties