Midwest Menaces

General Information about Item:

Genre: Sports Tradition – Integration Tradition

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Informant Data:

Kai Sane is a 21 year old male born in Minneapolis, Minnesota but raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is a Junior at Dartmouth College and has been playing tennis competitively for 17 years. He has been on the Club Tennis team for three years, is a member of Beta Alpha Omega, Colleges Against Cancer, does research in the Quantitative Social Sciences department, and is a co-owner of DartBike. He first encountered the following tradition in October 2018, which is when it started. 

Contextual Data:

Social Context: The following tradition occurs every away tournament for the Dartmouth men’s tennis team. It originally started in 2018, with a senior, sophomore, and freshman, all hailing from the midwest, who began rooming together for every tournament. They found that their calm, level-headed demeanors, which they all attributed to their midwest upbringing. Upon graduation of the senior, they brought in a freshman whose personality matched the group’s well. 

Item:

The “Midwest Menaces” is a term that refers to a roommate group that has become a tradition among the men’s club tennis team. The members of this roommate group, which changes from year-to-year as team members graduate and replacements are brought in, find that their personalities complement one another well and that this rooming arrangement leads to superior performance in tournaments.

Collector: Robert Hopkins