Pre Match Psych Up

General Information about the Item:

Informant Data:

Abigail Chiu is a junior majoring in government at Dartmouth College. She is on the Dartmouth Women’s tennis team and has been named captain for next year’s season. Abigail was born in Austin, Texas and has spent almost the entirety of her life playing tennis. Throughout her life, Abigail was a highly ranked tennis player. Throughout much of her life, Abigail has developed many pre-match routines that have led her to have much success on the tennis court. Today, she (along with the rest of the Dartmouth Women’s tennis team) share pre-match rituals that have led to much success.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: The informant was interviewed in person regarding the Psych Up tradition. She first learned of the Dartmouth women’s tennis team tradition when she was a freshman in college and had just become a member of the team. The tradition takes place before every one of the women’s team college tennis matches and it is led by two members of the team. According to Abigail, this tradition can be led by any two members and the leaders are chosen at random by their coaches. Abigail also notes that this tradition occurs approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes before the match is set to begin. Abigail further explains that the “psych up” activity can be anything as long as it does not involve tennis and every member on the team is involved.
Cultural Context: It is often the case that sports teams will have pre-game traditions before a match. Sometimes, teams will have certain before match traditions because they want to take their minds off of the match to reduce feelings of stress. This is the intention behind the “Psych-Up” tradition, according to Abigail. Although this approach is different from the way she would go about preparing for matches before she got to Dartmouth, Abigail says that she has appreciated the tradition more and more as she has gone about her Dartmouth career because she feels that the tradition helps her relax and bond with her teammates.

Item:

About an hour and twenty minutes before a match is set to begin, two people on the Dartmouth Women’s team (chosen at random) are assigned to lead a team activity involving all the players, which can be anything. The activity is called “Psych Up” and it is designed to loosen the tension in everyone prior to the beginning of a match.

Collector: Peter Conklin

Dartmouth Folklore Archive