Author Archives: f00312v

Clean Locker Room (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    • Locker room tradition
    • Type of Lore: Customary
    • Informant: KB
    • Place of Origin: Princeton, New Jersey
  2. Informant Data:
    • Kevin Bruce is a twenty one year old male who plays football at Princeton University. Kevin was born and raised in Needham, MA, where he attended Needham High School. He is currently a senior defensive lineman on the Princeton football team, and has resided in Princeton, New Jersey for the past four years.
  3. Contextual Data:
    • Princeton considers themselves to be atop the Ivy League, regardless of their record or season trajectory. They hold themselves to a high standard, and feel they play better when all players hold themselves accountable.
  4. Tradition
    • After every practice, every single Princeton player is responsible for helping to clean their locker room. Princeton takes their locker room very seriously, and believes if they can keep it looking clean (by doing the little things right), it will help them achieve perfection in the season. A clean locker room is the sign of a well organized team, and well run a team. This also brings the team closer together as a whole, helping build trust among players that everyone will do their part, and do it to perfection.

“Locker Room Pre-Game Chant” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    • Locker room tradition
    • Type of Lore: Verbal/Customary
    • Informant: DG
    • Place of Origin: Providence, RI
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Daniel Gioioso is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Union College. Daniel, who goes by Dan, was born in Newton Massachusetts but raised in Walpole Massachusetts. Dan attended Xaverian Brothers High School where his love of football flourished. Currently, he resides in Schenectady, New York, where he attends Union College and has played football for the past four years. 
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. The Union football team has seen great success since Dan joined the team in 2017. They recently won their national championship at the division 2 level. Dan started for the team throughout his entire collegiate career, and has helped Union by recruiting kids, and improving the culture at the school.
  4. Text/Tradition:
    1. To do this, Dan, amongst the other players, employ a locker room chant to get the players riled up and ready to play. This chant is a tradition at Union that had fallen off a little before Dan’s arrival. This chant was inherited from the older players, and said before every game. The chant is 16 lines, and the captain of the team gets in the middle of all the players in the locker room. This chant helps to build character, and ignites the fighting passion of the Union football players.
    2. Here are a few lines:
      1. “As I walk across the field today, it comforts me to know that I am the roughest, toughest guy on the field. I have been coached well, I show no mercy, so help me God”. 

“The Brick” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    1. Locker room tradition
    2. Informant: Andrew Irwin
    3. Place of Origin: Cambridge, MA
    4. Material Tradition
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Andrew Irwin is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Harvard University. Andrew was born and raised in Altoona, PA, where he attended Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School. Andrew is currently a senior linebacker on the Harvard football team, and has resided in Cambridge, MA for the past four years.
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. In recent years, Harvard has always been at the top in terms of Ivy League football. But it wasn’t always like that. Back in the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s Harvard football was a disaster. They were not playing well, and it was like the program had hit a roadblock. The coaching staff and players were unsure if it was just their time in history to be average, or if they were cursed. Something had to be done in order to get the program back on track. In the year 2000, after having lost to the Ivy League champions (University of Pennsylvania) by just one point, things seemed to be trending in the wrong direction. However, things changed after a team trip to the local swimming spot nearby. 
  4. Item/Tradition:
    1. No one is sure of how this tradition started, or by whom, but on that trip to the swimming spot, a Harvard football player picked up a brick in the middle of the lake. He began throwing in the air as high as possible, and everyone had to run away before being hit. Apparently, the team was enthralled by the brick since there was nothing to do at the lake besides swim. They ended up bringing the brick back to their football locker room. As a joke, the player who found the brick brought it to the team’s first game. They pumbled their opponent by 35 points. Since that point, the team brought the brick to every game, and would make sure to safely return it to the locker room immediately after. That year, Harvard went 9-0, and was one of only two teams to ever go undefeated in the Ivy League. Now, the brick resides in the Harvard Locker room, and is brought to every game for good luck.

“Friday Night Locker Room Watch Party” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    1. Locker room tradition
    2. Informant: Callum Flanders
    3. Place of Origin: Providence, RI
    4. Verbal and Customary Tradition
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Callum Flanders is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Brown University. Callum, who goes by Cal, was born and raised on the south shore in Braintree, Massachusetts. He attended Xaverian Brothers High School where he developed his love for sports. Cal currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island, where he has attended Brown and played division one football for the past four years. 
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. College football was a lot different than Cal had expected. At Brown, the football team is not the focal point of the university (like many serious division one colleges), where attendance and the perception of football are at a low point. This was due to a continually losing football program at Brown. Players were not getting excited when their teammates were making big plays. They were not celebrating like other winning programs would, and it showed.
  4. Item/Tradition:
    1. In order to change culture, a few seniors (who graduated in 2010) began the “Friday Night Locker Room Watch Party”. No one knows who exactly started the tradition, but the players get together as a team on Friday night before the game, in the locker room. There, they watch the Ivy League Friday Night game on tv. They get food catered, bring gaming consoles, and play super smash bros. Players eat, talk and generally spend more time with each other (outside structured time). Friendships and true bonds are built through this unstructured time, and the tradition helps players become more willing to celebrate when their teammates/friends make a big play. 

“Senior Spotlight” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    1. Locker room tradition
    2. Informant: John Dean
    3. Place of Origin: New Haven, CT
    4. Verbal and Customary Tradition

  1. Informant Data:
    1. John Dean is a twenty four year old male who plays football at Yale University. John was born in White Plains, New York, but was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Xaverian Brothers High School, where he played both football and lacrosse, and was also named to the academic scholar athlete all-star team. Currently, John resides in New Haven, Connecticut, where he has attended Yale for the past five years. John is the current and only captain of the Yale football team, and has played football his entire life. 

  1. Contextual Data:
    1. John decided to attend Yale University out of high school, a wise decision both academically and athletically. He had received offers from bigger and better schools in terms of football, but decided that he wanted an Ivy League education. As a freshman, John was worried about college expectations, and what managing football and academics would entail. College, especially Ivy League institutions, can be overwhelming for new students at times. This is why Yale Football has a tradition that helps the younger players get a feel for college life, and it’s called “Senior Spotlight”

  1. Text/Tradition:
    1. “Senior Spotlight” is a week to week tradition that takes place during every Yale football season. The night before every game, a random senior is chosen to give a speech in front of the entire team in the Yale locker room. These speeches usually last around twenty to thirty minutes, and are about that seniors’ experience with the school, team, and/or their life. “It is meant to be an open conversation”. The significance of this tradition lies in the unity of the team. It gives everyone a senior’s point of view of what they went through. It also helps the young players, bringing them closer to the team as a whole. Yale does this every season to help better the culture of their team, and bring the new players up to speed on what it means to be a Yale football player. The origin of this tradition is unknown, and has been going on since John arrived as a freshman (and well before that), making this a piece of Yale folklore.