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Author Archives: Drew Clutterbuck
Playoff Beard (Drew Clutterbuck)
Title: Playoff Beard
General Information about Item:
- Magic Superstition (Contagious Magic)
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States
- Informant: S.K.
- Date Collected: 11-6-21
Informant Data:
- S.K. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023 who is majoring in economics. He was born and raised in Milton, Massachusetts and began playing hockey at the age of 7. He is currently competing on the varsity hockey team at Dartmouth College.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: In hockey, there is a regular season, where teams play each other a fixed number of times to decide who gets into the playoffs. In the playoffs, there are several rounds in which one team plays against another in a series. If a team loses the series, they are out of the playoffs and will not play another game until next season. The last two teams play in the finals to decide who wins the championship.
- Social Context: This folklore was collected over facetime when asking the informant if he had any superstitions. The informant has always known of the playoff beard since he was a child because it has been around all levels of hockey, even the professional league, for decades. He only started participating in it when he was first able to grow facial hair.
Item: If you shave your beard during playoffs, then your team will be knocked out of the playoffs.
Transcript: “One superstition we have, and so does every other team in hockey, both college and professional, is that when the playoffs come around, you can’t shave your beard. It’s called a playoff beard and if you shave it then your team will be knocked out of the playoffs. I’ve been participating in this superstition before I even came to Dartmouth, when I was first able to grow facial hair.”
Informant’s Comments:
- “I’m not really sure how or when it originated, but it has been around for a very long time and is a big part of professional hockey.”
Collector’s Comments:
- This is an interesting superstition because not only is the whole team involved, but the entire sport of hockey seems to be involved in it.
Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- American
- Hockey
- Beard
- Dartmouth
- NHL
Pole Knocks (Drew Clutterbuck)
Title: Pole Knocks
General Information about Item:
- Magic Superstition (Sympathetic Magic)
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: Norway
- Informant: H.T.
- Date Collected: 10-29-21
Informant Data:
- H.T. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023 who is majoring in economics. He was born and raised in Oslo, Norway and began skiing at the age of 5. He began skiing competitively at the age of 8. He is currently competing on the varsity alpine skiing team at Dartmouth College.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: Alpine skiing is the sport of racing down a snowy mountain on skis. While racing, with timed runs, a competitor holds two poles that they use for balance as well as propulsion at the beginning of the run. Whoever gets down the mountain quickest through a set course wins.
- Social Context: This folklore was collected at Baker Library when asking the informant if he had any superstitions. It first originated around ten years ago when he noticed his other teammates had a pre-race routine, which typically consisted of knocking poles together in some sort of fashion. This originated when he felt he had to do something to get him more focused for the race.
Item:
- Before each race, the informant knocks his poles together three times, and then knocks himself in the head twice. This will make him race better.
Transcript:
- “Around 10 to 15 seconds before I go, I have to, with my poles, knock them together three times and then knock my head two times. This is just to say ‘ok we’re going now, this is race time.’ This came when I felt I had to do something else because I felt that I wasn’t focused enough for races, so this would get me into the zone.”
Informant’s Comments:
- “This doesn’t really make me any better physically, but it puts me in the right mental state so that I believe I do perform better.”
Collector’s Comments:
- I think this is interesting because it is less about luck and more about just being focused and in the moment so that he skis better.
Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- Norwegian
- Alpine Skiing
- Dartmouth
- Ski Poles
Home Plate (Drew Clutterbuck)
Title: Home Plate
General Information about Item:
- Magic Superstition (Sympathetic Magic)
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States
- Informant: B.D.
- Date Collected: 11-5-21
Informant Data: B.D. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022 who is majoring in government. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Matthews, North Carolina where he started playing baseball at the age of 7. He is currently competing on the varsity baseball team at Dartmouth College, playing as an infielder.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: In baseball, there are four bases that a player must round in order to score a point for their team. They can advance to the next base when the person batting hits the ball in play and it is not caught. They must get to the next base before being tagged by the ball, or before a player on the other team holding the ball touches the base they are running to. Once a person on the batting team reaches “home plate,” which is the final base, their team gets a point.
- Social Context: This superstition was collected at the Baker Library when asking the informant if he had any personal or team superstitions. It has been around for a very long time and he is not really sure where or how it originated, but he found out about it before his first practice with the Dartmouth baseball team.
Item:
- If a freshman touches home plate before their first Ivy League game, then they will play poorly for the rest of the season and the team will lose that first game.
Transcript:
- “For team superstitions, we have this one where no one who is a freshman can touch home plate until they play their first Ivy League game… If they do, they will definitely play badly and the team will lose that first game.”
Informant’s Comments:
- “In my time at Dartmouth, all the freshmen have been very wary of touching home plate, and no one has broken this rule, so it seems as though everyone believes in it, including myself.”
Collector’s Comments:
- I find this superstition interesting in that it not only affects the individual who touches home plate, but it affects the team as a whole as well.
Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- American
- Baseball
- Dartmouth
- Home Plate
- Freshmen
Kirkland Sports Drink (Drew Clutterbuck)
Title: Kirkland Sports Drink
General Information about Item:
- Magic Superstition (Sympathetic Magic)
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States
- Informant: S.M.
- Date Collected: 11-3-21
Informant Data:
- S.M. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022 who is majoring in economics. He was born and raised in Belmont, Massachusetts where he began rowing at the age of 14. He is currently competing on the Men’s Heavyweight Rowing Team at Dartmouth.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: Rowing is a sport in which you race in boats using oars, or paddles, to propel the boat forward. It requires a lot of nonstop physical exertion and is very demanding on the body. Sports drinks are an important way to replace water and electrolytes lost during exercise.
- Social Context: This superstition was collected over facetime in November of 2021 when asking if the informant had any personal or team superstitions. This folklore originated when the Dartmouth rowing team was unable to find gatorade while shopping for an upcoming regatta. They were at Costco, so the only sports drink they could find was Kirkland brand and it made the team do very well and became their signature drink for regattas.
Item:
- The superstition that was collected is that if the rowing team has Kirkland Sports Drink before competing, they will do better than if they drank any other brand of sports drink.
Transcript:
- “Right now we believe in Kirkland Sports Drink as a huge plus. When we couldn’t find gatorade last year, the only thing we could find at Costco was Kirkland Sports Drink, so we got that in mass and it fueled us. So that’s our signature, like, we need this to do well.”
Informant’s Comments:
- “I actually believe there is something in the Kirkland sports drink that makes us better. I don’t know what it is but I think it should be tested for EPOs.”
Collector’s Comments:
- I find this superstition interesting because it is very recent, it was only developed a year ago, but they believe in it fully.
Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- American
- Heavyweight Rowing
- Dartmouth
- Sports Drink
Lucky Lifejacket (Drew Clutterbuck)
Title: Lucky Lifejacket
General Information about Item:
- Magic Superstition (Sympathetic Magic)
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States
- Informant: B.B.
- Date Collected: 11-6-21
Informant Data:
- B.B. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023 who plans on majoring in english. He was born and raised in Irvington, Virginia where he began sailing at the age of 7. Since then he has competed all over the world and is currently sailing for the varsity sailing team at Dartmouth.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural Context: In the sport of sailing, each competitor is required to wear a US Coast Guard approved Personal Flotation Device (PFD), otherwise known as a Life Jacket. These are vests that are worn around the torso and allow the wearer to stay afloat if they fall into the water, which is especially important if the sailor is knocked unconscious into the water.
- Social Context: This superstition was collected over facetime in November of 2021 when asking if the informant had any personal or team superstitions. He originally learned this superstition at the age of 12 or 13 when he began to get into the mental side of the sport, which was pretty weak for him. His coach at the time wanted him to get into more of a routine and the informant adopted many of his current superstitions, including this one, from said coach. There are several other people that the informant knows of, in the sailing world as well as on the Dartmouth sailing team that carry this same superstition.
Item:
- The superstition that was collected is the idea that if the informant wears the same life jacket that he has been wearing for the majority of his life, then he will do better in the regatta and it will bring him good luck on the water.
Transcript:
- “I have many superstitions… one is that I always wear the same life jacket on regatta days. I think if I wear this life jacket then I am more likely to do well and have good luck. I developed it probably when I was 12 or 13, I was travelling with different teams to get new help from different coaches and they were helping me with my mental side which was pretty weak… I know this is a pretty common superstition both in college sailing and the sailing world in general.”
Informant’s Comments:
- “I do actually believe in this superstition. I believe that if I am not wearing this life jacket, I will feel off and will have bad luck.”
Collector’s Comments:
- I found this superstition interesting as it is focused on what the competitor is wearing. It could just be out of a feeling of familiarity and comfort that this superstition comes from.
Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- American
- Sailing
- Life Jacket
- Dartmouth