The Ball

Title: The Ball

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Ritual, Superstition, Verbal Lore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Kate Landers
  • Date Collected: 2/25/18

Informant Data:

  • Kate Landers was born in Chicago, IL, on March 11, 1997. She grew up in the city with her parents and older brother. Her father’s family is from South Korea and her mother’s family is from New England. Kate is a junior at Dartmouth College and plays on the Varsity Women’s Ice Hockey Team.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Many sports teams have rituals and superstitions. They can be performed by all the players at once or by small groups of teammates. Many of the Dartmouth Women’s Ice Hockey rituals are tradition. The team follows an identity: Team, Tradition, Excellence. While the team has many on and off-ice traditions, this item is one of the traditions that is performed by every team member in the same situation.
  • Social Context: This item is performed in the locker room, an hour and forty minutes before every game . After the coaches come in to have a pre-game speech, the players all stay seated at their stalls, in the locker room, for this item. It was bequested to Kate from a player that graduated in 2016, and after Kate’s senior year, she will bequest it to a freshman. This ritual has been performed for decades.

Item:

  • Kate was bequested a small, toy sized soccer ball that says “NCAA” on it. This ritual is a tradition where everyone sits in their stalls and the small ball gets passed around the locker room clockwise. When it is the players turn with the ball, they are supposed to take a moment and tell the rest of the team something they want to do well in the game or something they want to work on as the game goes on. Kate starts it every game and hands it to her left until it goes around the whole team. The ball cannot touch the ground or it is said to be cursed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transcript:

  • “It’s actually a huge honor to have this responsibility on the team. Its one of the few traditions that the whole team takes part in and it’s awesome that I get to be the one who is in charge of it. When we play Ivy league teams, sometimes we put a little twist on the tradition and instead of a ball we use another object… it’s pretty cool. We’ve never had the ball drop… knock on wood.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • This really starts the game-day process at the rink. It’s the first thing the team does to start zoning in and focusing up.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It means a lot to all of the members on the team. It’s a tradition that has been passed down throughout the history of Dartmouth Women’s Ice Hockey and it helps each player get mentally prepared for the game.

Collector’s Name: Kate Landers

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Lore
  • Verbal Lore
  • Superstition
  • Ritual
  • The Ball

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *