Transferring Pool Water

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ITEM:

INFORMANT DATA:

Margaret (Maggie) Deppe-Walker is a swimmer on the Dartmouth Women’s Swim and Dive Team at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. As a junior, she has been part of the team since her freshman year. Maggie is from Fairfax, Virginia and was born on August 10, 1998. She began swimming at the age of six years old, and has swam ever since. Her favorite stroke is breaststroke.

CONTEXTUAL DATA:

Cultural Context: The cultural context of this particular folklore is a physical manifestation of the hard work and training that the swimmers experience before an important swim meet. In this case, transferring a jar of the Dartmouth swim pool’s water into the competition’s pool water reflects a ritual that is understood to be the coach’s hope that the team’s hard work will be transferred over to the competition’s pool, especially for the intense and competitive Ivy League Championships. This pre-Ivy ritual ensures the swimmers’ and the coaches’ confidence that the team will perform well, after having rigorously trained.
Social Context: This folklore was collected through an interview on the first floor of the Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College, right after swim practice had been completed. Maggie explains that this particular ritual is performed before every Ivy League Championship meet. Most times, the Ivy League Championships are not hosted at Dartmouth, and thus requires swimmers to relocate. Although this is not her own personal ritual, she understands that this has been a pre-championship ritual for the coach ever since she’s been a student at Dartmouth.

ITEM:

Before the Ivy League Championship Swim meet, the Dartmouth Swim Coach will collect a jar/container of the Dartmouth pool water and bring it to the competition’s pool, emptying the Dartmouth swim water into the competition’s pool.

TRANSCRIPT:

INFORMANT’S COMMENTS:

COLLECTOR’S COMMENTS:

This particular ritual, though a bit strange, makes sense; after spending months and years of hard work in the Dartmouth Swim pool, it makes sense that in a way, it gives the swimmers a sense of good luck when they see that the competition pool has a bit of their own “hard work” placed into it. Usually, for Ivy League Championships, the competition is held not at Dartmouth, and therefore, the coaches will bring a bit of “home” to wherever they go, ensuring that their hard work has not been forgotten in the new pool where they compete.

COLLECTOR’S NAME: Sarah Sim

Dartmouth Folklore Archive