Men’s Swimming (Henry Goodwyn)

Title: Men’s Swimming Pre-Game Rituals

General Information about Item:

• Type of Lore: Customary Lore, Ritual, Verbal Lore
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: John Hall
• Date Collected: May 22nd, 2019

Informant Data: John Hall is in the class of 2019 at Dartmouth where he competes on the Men’s Swimming and Diving Team. His event consist of mid-distance freestyle races, which he has competed in for almost his entire life. This gives him a unique perspective in terms of the lore and rituals that he has seen and participated in both here at Dartmouth and on his high school/travel swim teams. He is currently in his junior year and has spent his entire time at this school on the Men’s Swimming and Diving Team.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Dartmouth Men’s Swimming and Diving is unique because it is a team sport that consists of multiple individual events. The team has a had a shaky record since John has been a student at this school. This team has a very unique presence on Dartmouth’s campus and are all very close with one another.
• Social Context: Men’s Swimming and Diving is unique because of the nature of their competitions. The sport has different distances which require different mindsets in order for athletes to perform to the best of their individual abilities. A spectator might think that because the events are individually oriented that the team doesn’t have much unity, but there are both individual and team aspects to the Pre-Game rituals that John performs.

Item: John described his own individual Pre-Game rituals as well as the team component of his pre-game ritual. He explained that he has had the same individual warm-up since his early high school career and that because it is so ingrained in his routine, he would not feel comfortable competing without doing every stretch/practice start the same way. He then explained that right before the race starts, the team sings a chant together. This brings the team together in a sense of unity before they split up and compete in their respective races.

Athlete’s Photo:

Transcript: “Initially its started for me as my club and high school coaches telling me and my team, ‘This is how you should warm up’, but as you get older you tinker with that because it’s not a one-size-fits-all. For the team rituals it’s important because its always the exact same thing so when I first got here they taught it to us and now it’s my job as a member to help pass that along to new members of the team when they join”

Informant’s Comments: John said that the team chant component of his warm up was very important to him because of the history of the chant. He said that he was never handed a written version of the chant but was expected to learn it as he progressed with the team which took him some time. He explains that now that he knows the chant he is proud of the history behind the chant and enjoys passing down the tradition and history that the chant has to new members.

Collector’s Comments: John was very adamant in the fact that he do the same warm-up routine every time he competes or else he would not feel mentally prepared. The rituals that he described made sense in terms of practicality seeing as he swims in different events than other members of the team. It was also interesting to note that he was insistent that the team performs their group chant right before the competition started (after the team members did their individual routines).

Collector’s Name: Henry Goodwyn

Tags/Keywords:

• Dartmouth Swimming
• Pre-Game Rituals
• Ritual
• Verbal Lore