Male, 19 years old, Born in New Hampshire, Currently living in Hanover, NH
CD is a long distance and XC runner at Dartmouth
Contextual Data:
Cultural Context: Cross country races are both a team and individual sport. While individual performance is important, so is the team’s as a whole. These races also take place outdoors with hundreds of competitors from different schools all starting on the same start line.
Social Context: Since Cross country is a team sport, making sure that the team is bonded and eager to help each other is essential to placing well in a meet.
Item:
CD described a team cheer which the Men’s cross country team chants before every meet. The whole men’s team gathers in a huddle to perform the chant. He described two parts, person A (usually the team captain) leads the chant while the other line is shouted by the whole team in response.
Informant Comments/Quotes:
“We have the same cheer before every race.”
Person 1: “Men of dartmouth set a watch”
All: “Lest the old traditions fail” – CD
Collector Comments:
The team cheer seems like it really gets the whole team excited and ready to work together in the coming race. I can see how it’s extremely important to have the team get together for one final chant before it’s time to compete.
Female, 19 years old, born in Boston, MA, currently living in Hanover, NH
AJ is a mid distance and cross country (XC) runner at Dartmouth
Contextual Data:
Cultural Context: Cross country races are both a team and individual sport. While individual performance is important, so is the team’s as a whole. These races also take place outdoors with hundreds of competitors from different schools all starting on the same start line.
Social Context: Since Cross country is a team sport, making sure that the team is bonded and eager to help each other is essential to placing well in a meet.
Item:
AJ described a team cheer which the cross country team chants before every meet. The whole women’s team gathers in a huddle to perform the chant. She described two parts, person A (usually the team captain) leads the chant while the other lines are shouted by the whole team in response.
Informant Comments/Quotes:
“We do a certain cheer before every race at Dartmouth.”
Person A: “Run”
All: “Fast”
Person A: “Run”
All: “Relentless”
Person A: “Run”
All: “Ugly”
Person A: “Lone pine pride on three”
Person A: “1 2 3”
All: “Lone pine pride”
Collector Comments:
The team cheer seems like it really gets the whole team excited and ready to work together in the coming race. I can see how it’s extremely important to have the team get together for one final chant before it’s time to compete.
• Ritual / Tradition • Language: English • Country of Origin: USA • Informant: TBS • Date Collected: 11/15/19
Informant Data:
TBS is a ‘23 from Portland Oregon on the Track & Field team. She has been on the team for three years and participates in the throwing events, specifically hammer and weight throw. She began competing in track and field her senior year of high school.
Contextual Data:
• Cultural Context: Dartmouth is one of eight colleges in the Ivy League. The Ivy League is a Division I athletic conference made up of colleges and universities all located in the eastern U.S. and extremely rigorous academically. The biggest competition each season for the track and field and cross-country teams that compete in this conference is the Heptagonal Championships, or HEPS for short. This meet is referred to as the heptagonal championships because there used to be only seven teams in the Ivy League. Throughout the years some schools left the league and others joined to create a total of the eight teams there are today, however the name of this championship stuck. This meet is the only one all year where only all eight teams compete against each other, and it is extremely important. • Social Context: Although not every athlete on the team qualifies to compete at HEPS, the whole team comes together to send off those competing. It is important for overall team comradery and spirits going into the competition. It is also very common for all athletic teams to eat a meal together before competition so they can form deeper connections with their teammates.
Item:
• The tradition is that before the HEPS meet, the whole team comes together and has a team dinner at 53 Commons and does a team cheer at the end as a sendoff for those competing.
Associated Media File:
Video of the 2010 Dartmouth Track and Field Team doing the team cheer before the 2010 Heptagonal Championships.
Informant’s Comments:
TBS says that before every big meet, specifically HEPS, the whole team sits at the “track team” table at 53 Commons and eats dinner together. At the end of the meal, one of the captains begins the team cheer and the rest of the team joins in and chants together. This is done in front of all the other people eating in the dining hall. While it can be somewhat embarrassing to draw attention to yourself by participating in the cheer, you know you are not alone because the whole team is participating in it. It is a great bonding experience and one that makes you feel really special and proud to be a part of the Dartmouth track and field team.
Collector’s Comments:
As a newer member of the track and field team whose experience has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this is not a tradition that I have been able to participate in yet. However, I am very excited to do this before the indoor HEPS this upcoming winter. The cheer is something that all new athletes on the team learn very soon after arriving on campus. This is a great example of verbal folklore because the author is unknown, it is passed down orally through generations, and it doesn’t have any true meaning other than for the team itself. The team dinner is also important because of the bonding it encourages between event groups and upper/underclassmen.
Taken very light-hearted. The sorority and those who wish to partake sing a welcome song to new members that replaces the lyrics of notorious “Sweet Home Alabama” with lyrics that are unique to the sorority. Only members of the sorority sing the song.
Collector’s Comments
Anonymity in order to not reveal identity of fraternity and informant. The seriousness with which the songs are treated varied greatly between southern houses and Dartmouth. The amount of time and material coordination was directionally proportional to seriousness/geographic location.
See “Bid Chant” post for example videos of sorority welcome songs
Informant #1: AnnClaire MacArt, 20, Female.AnnClaire (AC) was born and raised in Northern California. She currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire and is a sophomore at Dartmouth College. AC is a member of the Dartmouth College Varsity Swimming and Diving Team. She has swum competitively for over 10 years, including at the age group (club), high school, and now collegiate level.
Informant #2: Andrew North
Andrew North was a four year member of the Dartmouth Men’s Swimming and diving team. In his fourth year on the team he served as one of two captains of the men’s team. He has lived across the US as well as internationally; contributing to his broad knowledge of the national and global swimming communities: his states of residence include Indiana, Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska as well as the Philippines. Andrew continued to swim in all of these places, spanning over more than a decade of competitive swimming.
Customary, Ritual
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Social / Cultural Context:This ritual involves a brief team meeting followed by a cheer at a swim meet. These cheers are performed at competitions prior to the start of races. It is not just one team that participates but many; although the actual cheer itself differs for team to team, the ritual of performing a cheer is found as a commonality among all teams. It seems that there is even a recognized time that these cheers be performed; after the first team performs a cheer the other teams’ cheers quickly follow.
Video: AC
Transcript: Andrew North:“You know, for me, it was always about the cheer after everyone kindof does their own thing for the pre-meet warm up and their own pre-meet ritual…just feeling the excitement of everyone building up to a big cheer… you do it so that you and your team get pumped up and you literally do, you start screaming and jumping up and down, it would be really hard to walk away from that without getting your heart rate up.”
Informant’s comments: The team cheer is always done, one of the strongest rituals in swimming.
Collector’s comments: As both informants were from the same college team, their description of this ritual put together for this piece of folklore.
Informant: Keely McLean, 15, Female. Keely is a freshman in high school and two-year member of the Rosemount High School Women’s Swim Team (she also swam as an 8th grader). She has swam for several years now and currently competes at a high school level.
Customary: Ritual
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Social / Cultural Context: This is one of a few different cheers that is performed at a high school meet prior to the start. In this particular video, the cheer was performed at Sectional Championships by the members of the Rosemount High School Women’s Swim and Dive team.
Transcript:“I (I)
I (I)
I Believe (I Believe)
I Believe That (I Believe That)
I Believe That We Will Win
(I Believe That We Will Win)x3”
Informant’s comments: Keely commented that this is one of the most common cheers they do. It is a call and response cheer performed before the meet. Keely mentioned that all the teams do their cheers around the same time, taking turns so they are not all going at once.
Collector’s comments: The structure and context of cheer were similar to what we’ve seen in other levels of swimming.
Informant: Eliot Scymanski, 26, Male. Eliot is the assistant coach of the Dartmouth College Swimming and Diving team. Originally from Connecticut, Eliot attended Franklin and Marshall University where he himself was a swimmer. He went on to be an assistant coach at Franklin and Marshall before joining the staff at Dartmouth. In addition to coaching at the collegiate level, Scymanki has also coached age group swimming.
Customary: Ritual, Verbal
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Social / Cultural Context: This video was taken at the Tri-Meet between Harvard, Cornell, and Dartmouth swim teams. It features members of the Men’s swimming and diving team peforming a cheer before the beginning of the meet. The team is in a circular formation, with the individuals leading the cheer located in the center of the circle.
Transcript: “GO…BIG…GREEN”
Informant’s comments: “I think the swimmers really like starting ever meet with a cheer, it get’s them excited and ready to swim fast.”
Collector’s comments: The ritual of a team cheer shown in this video is typical among all levels of competitive swimming. It usually involves the team in a circular formation, and takes place at the beginning of the meet.
Welcome Song Initiation/Ritual
