Tag Archives: college athletics

Pregame Prayer (Evan Hecimovich)

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General info:

  • Type of Lore: Verbal/Customary/Material
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: N.G.
  • Date collected:11/4/2021

Informant Data: N.G. is a 5th year Senior at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He has lived in Naperville his entire life. While playing for Naperville North High School, he would play one game a year at his current team’s stadium.

Context:

Cultural: North Central is a very successful division 3 football program with a national championship on their record from 2019. It is a private Christian university. The teams head coach takes the schools religious background very seriously.

Social: William Shatzer was a member of the North Central College class of 1942 where he was an All-American football player. He had an opportunity to go the NFL, but with the entrance of the USA into World War 2, he volunteered for the Navy Air Corp. in 1944 he was shot down over the Pacific and never seen again.

Item: Before each game, the team heads out the statue of William Shatzer that stands outside the entrance to the locker room. Here the coach speaks about the sacrifice Shatzer made and they take a moment of silence to reflect. After this the team is led in a prayer by the head coach.

Transcript: “Before every game we head out to this statue of someone who played here in the 40’s and was a fantastic player with a chance to go the league. Instead, he joined the Military and went MIA. Here our coach talks about selflessness, and we have a chance to reflect. He then leads us in our pregame prayer.”

Informant comments: “I think its really about being selfless. Here you have this guy that had a great opportunity for his future but gave it up to fight for something bigger than himself.”

Shower Games (Evan Hecimovich)

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General info:

  • Type of Lore: Customary, Games
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: A.L.
  • Date collected:10/29/2021

Informant Data: A.L. graduated from Valparaiso University in 2019 after playing four years of football. He is originally from Lisle, Illinois where he grew up with his two parents and sister. A.L. has always been a large individual for his age and began football in the 4th grade. A.L. and his friends growing up would often play tackle football without pads in the park, which is where he first discovered his passion for the game.

Context:

  • Cultural: Valparaiso is a division 1 FCS football program. They typically do not win most of their games. Valparaiso is in the non-scholarship Pioneer League and most of the players are playing for the love of the game. It is a private Catholic University in Indiana.
  • Social: With Valparaiso traditionally not a winning program, the occasions in which they win games are very special. Players get especially excited over wins. The team enjoys celebrating these wins together in the locker room.

Item: Following a victory, players head into the locker room as they usually do and after some initial celebrations, begin to get in the showers. In the showers, several upperclassmen will cut to the front of the line with only their helmets on. The people in the shower will spray their soap in the middle of the shower and turn their showerheads so they are spraying the middle of the shower. The upperclassmen will then slide through the middle of the showers into the far wall.

Transcript: “After we win and talk with our coaches, we head to the locker room to celebrate. Everyone begins to take their stuff off following the game. The seniors put on their helmets and head to the shower. The people in the showers already spray their soap in the middle of the showers to make it slippery. So, then the seniors slide down the middle of the showers sort of like a slip n slide into the wall at the end.”

Informant Comments: As wins are not come by that often, the celebration with your teammates afterwards makes it that much more special.

Club Dub (Evan Hecimovich)

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General info:

  • Type of Lore: Customary, Dances
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: M.A.
  • Date collected:11/8/2021

Informant Data: M.A. is a member of the class of 2021 at Amherst College where he plays football. He returned for the 2021 season after the Covid-19 Pandemic cancelled his senior season. He is originally from Cheshire Connecticut where his father is a high school football coach. Being the son of a football coach, the sport has always been a huge part of his life and upbringing.

Context:

  • Cultural: Being a division 3 school, there are no scholarships for athletics. The athletes on these teams are playing primarily for fun and their love of the sport. M.A. plays for this reason and believes many of his teammates share his passion. Amherst is a competitive school in their collegiate division.
  • Social: A handful of individuals on the team are from Illinois and therefore fans of the Chicago Bears. In 2018 the Chicago bears started a tradition where they would hire a DJ, have colorful lights set up, and have a dance party amongst the team following wins both home and on the road. Videos of these celebrations were often posted to the internet and spread widely.

Item: Following a victory, Amherst celebrates with their own version of “Club Dub”. Someone on the team, typically a senior or captain, takes control of the speakers and plays music in the locker room. Another individual (or a few) will flip the lights in the locker room on and off rapidly to create a sort of strobe light. Others will take their phones out and flip the flashlights on and off to add to the light show. In this environment the teammates dance and celebrate their win together.

Transcript: “We do a sort of celebration after each of our wins. We call it Club Dub and it’s based on the Club Dub that the Chicago Bears are known to do. It started in 2018 when the Bears started doing it and someone on the team brought it up and thought it would be a fun way for our program to celebrate victories. We obviously don’t have the same funding as an NFL team so we just have one of the old guys take aux and create the light effect by flashing the lights on and off in a strobe and using phone lights. “

Informant’s comments: It is a fun way to celebrate a win and let loose with teammates after a hard week of preparation and game.

Freshman Conditioning (Evan Hecimovich)

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General info:

  • Type of Lore: Customary, Initiation Rite
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: E.W.
  • Date collected: 11/2/2021

Informant Data: E.W. is a 2/021 graduate of Butler University where he played football from 2017-2019. He played running back and was transitioning to cornerback before Covid-19 cancelled the season

Context:

  • Cultural: Butler is a private university in Indiana. While the Basketball team is well known for its national success, The football plays in the FCS non-scholarship Pioneer Football League.
  • Social: The item serves as a rite of initiation that every upperclassman had gone through at one point. It enables bonding through shared experiences and humor. It is done with harmless intentions and everyone has a good laugh about it afterwards.

Item: The upperclassmen would tell the Freshman they were going to run sprints early in the morning. As a rite of passage, the Freshman had to go to the locker room and put on all their pads and gear. Everyone would line up to begin the sprints, and as they began, the upperclassmen would fall behind and leave the field. The Freshman would continue running downfield for up to 100 yards before realizing it was all a joke.

Transcript:” So during camp each year we convince the freshman we are going to do extra conditioning led by the upperclassmen. This is during camp when the days are very long already. We get them early in the morning and tell them they have to go into the locker room and put on their pads for it as a sort of initiation thing. Once they come out, we line up for sprints and start. At the start of the sprint we all just go kind of slow and then stop and let the freshman continue to sprint as we all just leave the field and go back to our rooms. Some of them go the whole field before noticing we’re gone. “

“Ten Thousand Men of Harvard” (Zack Bair)

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  1. General Info
    1. Verbal Lore
    2. Place of Origin: Cambridge, Massachusetts
    3. Informant: Nasir Darnell
  2. Informant Data
    1. Nasir is currently a 22-year-old graduate senior on the Harvard University football team. Nasir is originally from Matawan, New Jersey and attended Red Bank Catholic High School.
  3. Contextual Data
    1. The song “Ten Thousand Men of Harvard” originated at Harvard in the year 1918. Composed by Charrles Putnam. The song is generally sung by the Harvard Glee Club at its annual joint concert with the Yale Glee Club prior to the famous Harvard-Yale rivalry game.  
  4. Item
    1. Just as the Harvard Glee Club sings “ten Thousand Men of Harvard” before games, the Harvard football team also sings the famous song following wins. The lyrics go:

Ten Thousand Men of Harvard want victory today

For they know that ov’r old Eli

Fair Harvard holds sway.

So then we’ll conquer all old Eli’s men,

And when the game ends we’ll sing again:

Ten thousand men of Harvard gained vict’ry today.

  1. Informants comments 
    1. “‘ Ten Thousand Men of Harvard’ holds an important place with not just the football team singing it in the locker room after wins, but with the entirety of the Harvard community. I remember when the band performed the song in Harvard Yard my freshman year, that was my first exposure to it.” 
  2. Collector’s Name: Zack Bair

No Talking to Competitors

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General Information about Item:

  • Ritual/ Superstition 
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: USA
  • Informant: JD
  • Date Collected: 11/14/19

Informant Data:

  • JD is a ‘23 on the Dartmouth Track & Field team from Andover, MA. He has been on the team for three years and participates in the throwing events, specifically hammer and weight throw. He began competing in track and field in the eighth grade.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural context: Many athletes are very superstitious and have lots of pre-meet rituals that they participate in. These ritual superstitions can be anything from an clothing item, a song they listen to, or a ritual. JD stated that he participates in this ritual because it makes them feel calm and puts them in a competitive mindset. 
  • Social Context: Rituals like this are a large part of athletic participation because how you interact with your competitors plays a big role in your competition experience. Rituals like this help make one feel more comfortable in a situation that they have little control over and provides them with an individualized action even when surrounded by a lot of people. The rituals can be playful or serious depending on the athlete. 

Item:

  • JD says that before and during every meet he does not talk to the competition at all until he is finished competing. Sometimes he does this by listening to music to distract him from everything else, and other times he just goes off to the side and avoids talking to people.

Associated File: 

*Informant did not feel comfortable being recorded. 

Informant’s Comments:

  • JD has done this ritual every meet since they were in high school. He said it makes him feel focused on himself and not on his competition and it makes him feel like he will do better. 

Collector’s Comments:

  • As an athlete myself, I have heard and seen many of my past and current teammates and opponents who have a similar approach to preparing for competition. 
  • This would fall into the categories of customary folklore, as it represents a transition from everyday life to incorporation into the competition mindset. 
  • While this isn’t a Dartmouth team specific tradition/superstition, this is just one example of the many athletes on the team who have similar superstitions. 

Collector’s Name:

  • Madyson Buchalski

Lifting Setup (Troy Burkhart)

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Title: Lifting Setup

General Information about item:

  • Magic (Sympathetic) Superstition
  • Origin: New Hampshire
  • Informant: E.S.
  • 10/10/2021

Informant Data:

  • E.S. was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 2001. He is currently on the tennis and powerlifting club teams at Dartmouth College. Eli is majoring in psychology with a minor in economics. His background is mostly European with family origins in Italy, France, and Ireland.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Before lifters and powerlifters move incredible amounts of weight, they have techniques that help them focus. These techniques allow them to mentally prepare for the movement they are going to perform which have been proven by doctors to increase weight and strength. For some reason, when a lifter/sports player hits his or her pressure points in the correct way, their muscles somehow become more attuned and exceed their potential that the lifters could not do moments before.
  • Social Context: The powerlifting club meets a few days a week at an off-campus gym where the group gets together and powerlift. Powerlifter groups are formed to help members push each other and get to the next/higher weight class. They all scream encouragement to each other when they are going for their maxes.

Item:

  • The routine movements that E.S. learned from the team at Dartmouth are about the final setup. Every teammate always enters the machine/weight by going left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand. They believes this focuses their minds and prepares them for the lift because they enter the machine the same way every time. E.S. claims it felt weird at first to follow this tradition but now he feels off-balance and weaker if he does not follow this Dartmouth entrance routine. The team does not know who started this tradition, but E.S. suspects it was whoever started the powerlifting club.

Associated files/pictures:

Transcript:

  • “If I do not enter left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand then I am off balance and fail a lot more than I usual do if I just follow the routine. It was weird to get the hang of remembering the routine but now it is second nature for me.”

Informants Comments:

  • He recommends getting into routine because he feels the consistency of the pre-game let also helps him consistently perform in powerlifting.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Sports routines are very common, but E.S. shows how important they can be and the consequences of not doing the routine or having it broken. He underperforms if the routine is broken and performs or improves from his last lifting session as long as he continues with his pre-game routine every week.

Collector’s Name:

  • Troy Burkhart
  • Dartmouth College ’23
  • Russian 13 Fall 2021
  • Professors – Gronas, Apresyan

Tags:

  • Powerlifting
  • Dartmouth
  • Superstition
  • College athletics

Left Sock

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Title: Left Sock

General Information about Item:

  • Magic Superstition, Sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: L.W.
  • Date Collected: 11-3-2021

Informant Data:

  • L.W. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023. He has played squash at Dartmouth all three years here. He was born in Massachusetts and is a big fan of Boston sports. He is currently studying history and would like to work in Boston after graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: L.W. grew up playing squash in Massachusetts. Squash is a one versus one sport that is played on the same courts as racquetball courts. The squash is a smaller less bouncy version of a racquetball, but the sports are similar viewing experiences. Squash, on the other hand, is slower paced as the ball does not move nearly as fast or bounce as many times as a racquetball. Furthermore, squash requires a lot of mental fortitude and focus during matches. 
  • Social Context: On the day of a match when he was young, L.W. realized he had forgotten to bring one of his socks. Unfortunately, he was left with the decision to either play with no socks or one sock. L.W.became anxious about his performance and did not want to wear no socks for his match. L.W.’s dad then told him that he had played with one sock when he was a child and that it was his best match of the season. L.W. then decided to wear one sock on his left foot for his game.

Item:

  • L.W. chooses to wear one sock on his left foot for the most important match of his season each year. When he was a child he believed he played his best match of the season the day he forgot one of his socks and attributed it to his success. 

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “I always wear one sock for big games. It feels different than with both socks on, but I just play better. I feel like I focus on the sock and playing well in the past and it helps me during the game.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I don’t really believe in superstitions, but this is one that I like to keep alive. It’s probably a placebo; however, I definitely get excited for the match that I choose to wear just the one sock. It hypes the match up and having one sock is a reminder of how important it is.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I think this superstition is awesome. It has to feel a little awkward wearing just one sock, but I know a lot of people who wear no socks in their cleats, skates, or shoes. It is interesting to me his decision to pick his left foot instead of his right and his consistency of placing the sock on his left foot. I’m not sure if I would have even remembered which foot I placed it on in the first instance, let alone continued to keep it on just the left.

Collector’s Name: 

  • Brock Paul
  • Class of 2023
  • Dartmouth College
  • Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Tags/Keywords:

  • Sympathetic Magic
  • Dartmouth College Athletics
  • English
  • Northeast America
  • Squash

Pre-Game Stretching (Troy Burkhart)

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Title: Pre-Game Stretching

General Information about item:

  • Magic (Sympathetic) Superstition
  • Origin: Florida
  • Informant: W.S.
  • 10/3/2021

Informant Data:

  • W.S. was born in Gainesville, Florida in the year 1999. He played on club squash (1 year) freshman year and was a weightlifter (4 years) throughout high school. He is majoring in engineering moded with economics and a minor in Japanese. His background is mostly European with family origins in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and England.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Stretching is a typical exercise that sports teams go through to increase mobility and reduce injuries during games and practice. While the amount of stretching varies in importance for every sport, in high impact running sports like squash, it is a very important exercise to do pre-game.
  • Social Context: Stretching is usually done in a circle before the game. Teams are able to discuss tactics and strategies for the upcoming game, joke around, and take their mind off the anxiousness for the game.

Item:

  • According to W.S., most squash players take the rubber ball and use it to stretch their muscles and focus. Players take the ball and place it between their body and the ground and slowly roll back and forth on their feet and arms. However, at Dartmouth, they have a different warm up routine with the squash ball. Instead of rubbing the bottom of their feet, the team takes a squash ball, and goes through a full body warmup using the squash ball rather than just their feet.

Associated files/pictures:

Transcript:

  • “I roll my entire body starting with my calves, then hamstrings, quads, back and finally lats. I feel much more stretched and prepared than just rolling my feet and arms.”

Informants Comments:

  • He highly recommends everyone to stretch. It significantly lowered the number of injuries he received while playing sports and he still stretches even though he does not play anymore.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Stretching is also a huge aspect of pre and post-game for hockey and is pretty much universal in all sports. However, we do this everyday before practice and before and after every game, not just before games.

Collector’s Name:

  • Troy Burkhart

Tags:

  • Water Polo
  • Dartmouth
  • Superstition
  • Repetition

Sweatpants

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Title: Sweatpants

General Information about Item:

  • Magic Superstition, Sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: D.H.
  • Date Collected: 11-3-2021

Informant Data:

  • D.H. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022.  He was born in Massachusetts.  During his time at Dartmouth, Daniel enjoys playing xbox and video games in general. While at home he often watches sports and would love to gamble if it wasn’t against D1 rules for athletes. He is currently studying economics and government and hopes to find a job in either of those fields after graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In sports there is always an expectation to perform. Therefore an item of clothing is often associated with a good or bad performance. If a player wears a different pair of socks than normal and performs badly, then they will often associate the poor performance with the pair of socks. For lacrosse, a lot of good older goalies he played with always wore sweatpants instead of shorts and pads on their legs. D.H. saw this as a kid and begun to wear the sweatpants instead in order play well
  • Social Context: D.H. explained that his team has a large number of individual superstitions. While he picked up the sweatpants superstition from older teammates, he has found that it is a particularly rare occurrence for lacrosse goalies to wear sweatpants. He has been wearing sweatpants for around six years and does not know if he will ever stop wearing them (maybe if he has a really bad few games in a row he would consider changing). 

Item:

  • The sweatpants he wears are not a specific pair of sweatpants, but he always wears a set of sweatpants that represent his team. He knows that the sweatpants do not protect his legs from blocked shots in the game, but he finds them comfortable and relates them to his good performances over the years.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “Most of our team’s superstitions exist from individual standpoint rather than team actions. My superstition originates from a time where I played particularly well while trying something new from an older teammate, so I adopted a new superstition. On the other hand, if I play a bad game, I perhaps will find a new superstition. I’ve been wearing sweatpants for probably 6 years.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I’m not sure whether it is a superstition or just a tradition I’d like to keep going, but I do know that if I went into a game without the sweats, I would be uncomfortable.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • D.H.’s superstition of wearing sweatpants is really interesting to me because when I grew up playing lacrosse, I never saw a goalie wear sweatpants instead of shorts and pads. Therefore, when I originally saw D.H. wearing them during the game I assumed maybe he was cold or thought it was for style. After hearing the origin of his sweatpants, I now consider it to be a superstition and find it extremely unique. 

Collector’s Name: 

  • Brock Paul
  • Class of 2023
  • Dartmouth College
  • Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Tags/Keywords:

  • Sympathetic Magic
  • Dartmouth College Athletics
  • English
  • Northeast America
  • Lacrosse