Tag Archives: sideline cheer

Sideline Cheer

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ITEM:

  • Customary Lore – Ritual
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: United States
  • Informant: Ariella Kovary
  • Date Collected: 11/10/19

INFORMANT DATA:

  • Ariella Y. Kovary is a former member of the Dartmouth Women’s Ultimate Frisbee Team, formerly known by its previous name, Princess Layout. She is a member of the class of 2020 and is majoring in history and psychology. She played frisbee recreationally in high school, and played on Dartmouth’s team during her entire freshman year and sophomore fall. Born on August 27, 1998, she is from Mineola, New York. 

CONTEXTUAL DATA:

  • Cultural Context: Sideline cheers and talk is an integral part of playing ultimate frisbee. Sideline cheers drive a lot of the energy on the field, pumping players up and helping them perform well and focus. Dartmouth Ultimate Frisbee has numerous sideline cheers that are creative, fun, silly, and unique.Many of them are centered around life at Dartmouth, pertaining to trees, Collis Pasta, and Webster Avenue and more. Additionally, sideline players also usually speak to the players on the field to help them gain more spatial awareness of the field and insight into what they should be doing during games. Overall, the sideline is a necessary part of a frisbee team; the players on the sideline play an essential role for the team.

 

  • Social Context: This ritual was documented in a one-on-one interview in Novack. Teams say cheers at practice and tournaments. They are a way for teams to demonstrate a united front against competition as well as energize themselves and teammates while playing frisbee. Teams are performed as a group, with all players saying the same words at the same time. Sometimes players will accompany cheers with physical dances, but that is not a necessary or integral part of the cheer.

ITEM: 

  • Sideline cheer

Recording:

TRANSCRIPT:

  • I guess when I first became part of the team and we were going to competitions and tournaments and things of that sort, I was not aware of what would go on if you’re not on the field. I thought it was a time just to relax and just like do homework. And I thought as a freshman that this was a great opportunity, even though I’m outside in the cold, I’ll just do my homework on the sidelines and be engaged partially. But I remember Angela Zhu, a ‘17, was like “oh no, everyone’s gotta get up on their feet and be rushing along the sidelines.” And I was like “but why, like why do we have to keep running along with the teammates that are on the field. They’re the ones who are playing and we’re not. It doesn’t make any sense.” But, in retrospect it did because the sideline engagement was like the encouragement as well as the enthusiasm for the players that were on the field. And I didn’t realize how much of a force that the people who didn’t play had on the people who did. And so its like a whole team engagement thing in which we’re shouting back and forth across the field to the other people that are on the sidelines and saying all these different sort of cheers , and we made up new ones, you know Kayliegh made that new one over spring break where you just say: “what time is it” and we’re all going back and forth saying “what time of the year is it? I don’t know. was it yesterday? Is it today?  Oh it’s spring break!” and then we all lift up our shirts and expose our bras and say it’s spring break. It’s so great that these cheers have caught on to other teams in which – I forgot which team it was but some other team we were playing even used one of our cheers and they even said our college’s name so it just shows the impact of the cheer itself and how much it not only inspires the people who are on the field, saying they have a support system, but also how much it is an engaging activity and a whole team bonding effort for everyone on the sidelines. It really created some sort of unity among everyone, and like, yes, there’s really great players that are gonna be on the field most of the time, compared to those who are not, or those who are novices in the frisbee world as I was myself. But overall it was a thing that brought the whole team together. They were fun, and they were quirky, and they were just like spontaneous and engaging. And whether you just lose your voice or you had to hydrate on water it was just like part of the spirit of Ultimate. And then, even though I left the team pretty early, one of the cheers will always remain with me, and that one is ‘P is for Party.’ So it goes like: “P is for party and A is for alright! R is ready and T is for tonight! Y is for you ‘cause you know what to do! Let’s Partyyyy! Don’t let your mama know you partyyyyy! That you go to Daaartmouth!” So considering that I’m now a senior and that was part of my freshman experience that really carried throughout my whole college career. So I’d say that sideline cheers are pretty important to the team as well as the players themselves.

INFORMANT’S COMMENTS:

  • “One of my favorite parts about Ultimate Frisbee was cheering on my Buddy, Caitlyn Lee.”

COLLECTOR’S COMMENTS: 

  • The sideline cheer is one of the most important aspects of a frisbee game. Team performance is truly impacted by the support on the sidelines. If teammates are being loud and cheering the players on well, the team plays better.

COLLECTOR’S NAME: 

  • Annett Gawerc and Luke Cuomo