Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

The Lucky Jersey Number

Folk Belief / Superstition
Occupational Folklore – Sports / Number Lore

1. Text

SI, a college athlete and lifelong soccer player, described a common superstition in sports: the belief that a specific jersey number brings good luck. For SI, the number is 12, a number he has worn on nearly every team since middle school. “It’s more than just a number,” he said. “It feels like part of me. When I wear it, I play better. When I don’t, I feel like something’s missing.”

He explained that the belief isn’t about the number being universally magical, but about it becoming his number through performance and association. “I had my best game ever in seventh grade wearing number 12,” he recalled. “After that, it just stuck. Every time I had a good game in that jersey, it reinforced the feeling.” SI went so far as to describe himself as being “protective” of the number even feeling annoyed if another player tries to claim it first.

The superstition extends beyond performance to preparation. “One time I couldn’t wear 12, and I just dropped the league. I was already in a tournament league.” he said.

While SI recognizes that there’s no scientific logic to it, he believes the number has become a symbol of confidence and consistency. “I know it sounds silly,” he said, “but it’s mental. I just feel better when I have it.”

2. Context

SI first developed a relationship with the number 12 in middle school, during a formative moment in his soccer career. After an unexpected breakout performance in a local tournament while wearing that number, the connection became ritualized. From that point on, he began requesting the jersey number for every team he played on, even switching teams in some cases to ensure he could keep it. Over time, the number took on an almost talismanic quality, a symbol of personal power and performance.

This superstition is typical within sports folklore, where personal and communal rituals help athletes cope with the intense pressure and unpredictability of competition. SI’s belief in the power of his number was not taught formally but developed through associative experience: repeated moments of success while wearing the number reinforced its symbolic power. His emotional attachment to it grew not from tradition passed down, but from personal repetition and ritual — a hallmark of vernacular belief in individual athletic settings.

SI’s relationship to the number is deeply embodied. He noted that wearing it helps him feel physically and mentally aligned. If he’s forced to play without it, he often adapts by symbolically carrying the number elsewhere — on his warm-up gear, wristbands, or even drawn in marker on his sock. These substitutions act as symbolic proxies, maintaining the ritual even when the official uniform can’t.

The importance of the jersey number is also entangled with group identity. Numbers can signify status, position, or legacy — especially in team sports whime numbers are often retired or passed down. SI mentioned that when someone else wore him number, he felt “weirdly territorial, like they were taking something that belonged to me.” This shows how the number not only signifies self, but also occupies cultural space within the team structure.

3. Interpretation

The belief in a “lucky jersey number” is a classic example of sports superstition, rooted in what folklorist Linda Dégh would identify as personal experience narratives that become ritualized through repetition and reinforced belief. The number, in this case, functions as a symbolic charm, an object that carries emotional and psychological weight far beyond its practical use.

This superstition operates at the intersection of magical thinking and performance psychology. The number itself has no inherent power, but the belief in it helps the athlete enter a desired mental state. In this way, the superstition becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the confidence it instills improves focus, motivation, and execution. The lucky number acts as a trigger for performance identity, allowing the athlete to “step into” their best version of themselves.

SI’s attachment to the number, even when it’s not available, reflects a broader human impulse to anchor meaning in material objects. In moments of unpredictability (a game, a tournament, a close match), the number becomes a stabilizing symbol. It offers comfort, consistency, and an illusion of control — all of which are critical under competitive pressure.

On a larger scale, this belief mirrors number lore found across cultures, where certain numbers (e.g., 7, 13, 3) are invested with spiritual or superstitious meanings. In SI’s case, the number is not culturally universal but individually sacred, rooted in him specific history of success and reinforced by the ritual of wearing it. This personalizes the belief while still aligning with broader folkloric patterns — specifically the idea that symbols gain power through use, memory, and embodied repetition.

Ultimately, SI’s lucky jersey number is more than a superstition, rather a living symbol of personal history, identity, and agency. Like many forms of folklore, its truth lies not in evidence, but in function: it works because it feels true.

Birthday Pushups

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Language: English

“In ROTC or Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, we had a tradition to, or I guess it’s kind of ritualistic. Um when it was someone’s birthday, we would in class, we would have to do our birthday pushups. So, we would have to, ou know, get down in push up position and then the leader in at the time would command us to basically begin push ups. And as you do the push ups they sing happy birthday. But they sing it really slow. And so even if you finish your push ups you have to stay in a plank position until they’re done singing it. And then you have to wait for the leader to let you come back up.”

Context: High school Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, on someone’s birthday.

Analysis: This tradition, as one of many life cycle traditions surrounding birthdays, plays on the idea of shared pain, similar to birthday spanks. The subject has to complete push ups and go through the ritual to prove themselves and be celebrated by the group as a whole. In this ROTC tradition, the object is not just pain but achievement. By completing the birthday pushups, the individual can show their increased athleticism and reassert their place in the group identity based on strength and discipline. By knowing everyone has to do the same when it is their birthday, the individual is more willing to complete their turn in good humor and recognize it not as a punishment, but as a way to bond with their peers and recognize the achievement of another year. 

Hummingbirds

Occupation: Student
Language: English

“One of the signs I look for every year is for a hummingbird. It’s really weird but I can’t consider it spring until I see a hummingbird. So, like, I haven’t seen a hummingbird this year yet. So, I don’t feel like it’s spring and it’s like April. It’s about to be May. So, I’m going to enter May and it’s not going to be spring yet.” 

Context: “It’s really weird but this kind of comes from I think my Nana. My Nana used to tell me that when you see a hummingbird, it means that it’s springtime. I feel like I always did this but I definitely started paying attention more after my nana passed away. Because I feel like it’s almost a sign from her I guess. Like how people believe in certain animals to represent their loved ones. Like I know popular ones are butterflies. Um but I look for hummingbirds. And my nana also passed away in the spring. So maybe that’s a part of it.”

Analysis: 

This seasonal sign is what marks the change of spring, not the date of the equinox, for this informant. I think it is especially important to note that they have not seen a hummingbird yet this year, making this year out of place and off rhythm for the informant. Much like the concept of Groundhog day, the idea of an animal being a sign of seasonal change is both related to the animals’ biological responses to weather and speaks to the individual on a deeper level regarding what spring signifies. The informant mentions the importance of the hummingbird increasing after the passing of her nana, potentially transforming this sign into a symbol of her nana’s rebirth alongside the natural world. As springtime is already associated heavily with rebirth and new life, the correlation between hummingbirds and the spirit of the informant’s nana is perhaps a natural extension of existing similar beliefs. 

DefCon Run

Nationality: American
Occupation: Computer Security
Language: English

“What we used to do is we would run one run- okay when the convention was on the strip, in the middle of the strip, like at Bally’s or Flamingo or that area, there would be a 5k run one day to the north, one day to the west, one day to the east, and one day to the south. The problem is over time it got too large and we couldn’t run as one large group, and the location of the convention went to the convention center, so we’re no longer on the strip. But we still meet in the morning Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday outside the convention center. And then we just get into groups and do different runs. Mainly based on how far you want to run and how fast you are, so if you want to just run back to your hotel you can.  It has grown beyond that, so we try to get together one night at a restaurant and just mingle. So its grown beyond the running in the last few years, I guess. I bump into some of the runners at the conference and we say hi.And we’ve been getting more and more swag over the years, one year they had bandanas, now we have official runners’ bibs- one year they did prime numbers but I don’t think there’s any pattern now. We’ve also had unofficial renewals of wedding vows because the guy organizing it is the guy running some online church that he got a certificate for.”

    Context: “The DefCon run is not officially sanctioned by DefCon. It started where a few people that were involved with Defcon wanted to have a run in the morning and run with people. It was pretty unstructured but it actually grew over time. We tried getting it as a sanctioned event but they were concerned about liability and that Defcon can’t support it. So we’re doing it unofficially without Defcon knowing. We even have a giant flag with a rabbit with Defcon inside of the rabbit. So even though we aren’t official, we try to sneak in Defcon. In the early days, we started with maybe 30. When it got to 100, that’s when we tried to get official status. It’s probably more than 140 now.”

    Analysis: This run, unofficially affiliated with the hacking conference known as Defcon, held in Las Vegas annually in August, is a renewal and formation of social bonds to the informant. He is able to meet new people and run with many of the same people who were participants years ago, when the run was smaller. These acquaintances last into the conference, where they are more likely to be familiar with people in different talks and speaker events. Because the run is several days, as is the conference, the bond is able to be deepened over the course of the four runs, as is explored by the informant’s mention of dinner becoming a part of the celebration. 

    In addition, the structure of the run itself is interesting. Four runs in the four cardinal directions may speak to the natural and athletic search runners are on, especially in a metropolitan area such as Las Vegas. It allows the runners to explore the area and ground themselves within the context of the city as a geographical location, especially considering the rest of the day will be spent inside a conference center and isolated from the outside. The growth of this run speaks to the larger desire to both seek community during the conference and maintain a larger community that they can reliably expect to rejoin year after year, running the same paths and using this tradition as the start to their day.

    Rouladen

    Age: 60
    Occupation: Computer Security
    Language: English

     “Oma used to make Rouladen So it’s beef that’s hammered really thin and then inside of that you wrap bacon, pickles, mustard, and then I’m not sure if its soaked in wine or not. It might just be a gravy. And then its rolled up. And when it’s served, its served in gravy. And its really good if you like the ingredients. It’s a really soft meat when its cooked. And we would serve it with red cabbage, also with wine. And you’d usually have mashed potatoes with it too. Oh, and you could have optional dumplings instead of the mashed potatoes. Or I think we’d have it with dumplings and mashed potatoes. But that was more up in Canada at my grandmother’s house.

    Context: “It might be for someone’s birthday, like if it was Opa’s birthday he might get Rue Laden. Or sometimes for holidays like Christmas, we’d have it instead of turkey or something. You will see German restaurants make it too, but not as good as Oma because she uses the right wine.   Also sometimes when Opa would say we hadn’t had it in a while, or when we had visitors over. It was a special dish”

     Informant describes this as a uniquely German dish.

    Analysis: Although this dish is not extremely limited in its preparation, being made multiple times a year, the informant still regards it as a special meal reserved for celebrations and times outside the normal day to day. These can be life-cycle events like birthdays, or seasonal occasions such as certain holidays, but they are all significant in that they seem to call the family closer together. The role of the chef, the informant’s mother, is of incredible importance to the informant as her version surpasses restaurant offerings and is more ‘authentic’. The familial element and process of cooking this dish seems just as important as eating it. Furthermore, the informant seems to derive national identity from this dish. Having emigrated from Canada to the US and his father having emigrated from Germany, the informant feels this dish is representative of his heritage and that it relates him back to Germany even though he does not live there.