Heavyweight Rowing | Dartmouth Folklore Archive

Title: Kirkland Sports Drink

General Information about Item:

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:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive