Tag Archives: basketball

“Baller Rituals”

Nationality: Japanese, Caucasian, Native American, Hawaiian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student/athlete
Residence: Kailua, Hawaii
Performance Date: April 14th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

I’m not very original or exciting, so at least for this year, it was always taking a nap before games and practices. But to list some other ones…

Before games, always show up exactly an hour and half early to get warmed up, stretched, relaxed before the game… listen to some really pump-up music, and… before the game starts, always make two layups and a free throw. I always wore the same spandies and bra, and one teammate always took a shower before a game. I knew one girl who just had to shave her legs before each game. Even if there were multiple games in a day, she’d shave before each and every of them. One teammate always drank only red Powerade during games, and had to have an apple during the game. Most of my teammates, their superstitious things that they do are just coming in and shooting around before each game.

Most of the time it’s just because it something you know that worked in the time before another game, and then you grow into it like a habit. Like in high school I never had any of these. You take these more seriously the more serious your sport becomes. Like compare a middle school/intermediate game with NCAA sports or… the Olympics… then there’s this crazy, elaborate list of rituals, things you just do out of habit/routine.

I had a coach that used to eat a quarter pounder with cheese before the game, just to show how ridiculous these things get… I feel like in all my experience most people fall into the category of eating something or wearing something that “worked” before in the hopes that it will again.

 

How did you come across this folklore: “This is kind of a culmination of “rituals” that I’ve come across/picked up in my personal experience, over 15+ years of playing basketball at clinic, intermediate, high school varsity, and college varsity levels.”

This collection of rituals can be interpreted as protection, and both contagious and homeopathic magic. With these techniques, athletes and coaches aspire to protect themselves and their teams from loss/injury, inherit the winning properties of something that was done before and for whatever reason was attributed to victory, and induce a like outcome with a like setup.

Lucky Socks for Basketball

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/11/2013
Primary Language: English

Click here for video.


“So I used to play basketball and when I played well I’d mark my socks, so if I played well I’d always wear the right sock on the right foot until I played bad and then I’d switch them up.”

I think this is a good example of contagious magic. According to my informant, the thinking behind this is that if he plays well with a certain sock configuration, the socks must either be causing the good performance or they must soak up some of the “mojo” of the good game and will lead to good games in the future. However, once he starts playing poorly, it’s obvious that the sock configuration has lost its magic and needs to be reconfigured. This is a way for him to relieve pressure from himself and stay calm in stressful games. If he does well, he will continue to do well thanks to his lucky socks. If he does poorly, it is not because his game is bad, but because his socks are no longer good luck socks and simply need to be changed. By rationalizing his basketball performance like this, my informant is able to stay cool and confident under pressure. Furthermore, the belief is that luck can be recycled, as long as he finds the proper order for his socks.

Jason Kidd’s Free Throw Ritual

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/11/2013
Primary Language: English

Click here for video.
“Even in the NBA, players have superstitions. For example, Jason Kidd, who whenever he shoots a free throw will touch his butt and kiss the crowd before he shoots.”

This ritual is a way of to soothing oneself during a stressful time through repetition of a familiar action. At the same time it is an act of showmanship, directly addressing the audience. Many athletes have rituals that they perform before or after games, as there is a strong belief in luck among them. This makes sense as the outcome of many athletic competitions doesn’t come down purely to skill. There is often a strong element of chance or luck involved in sports, so athletes often feel like luck and ritual is very important.

The idea of using familiar repetitions to relax is also seen when athletes or students choose to wear their “lucky socks” during a competition or exam. Whereas the item probably does not improve a person’s luck, it is often comforting by providing a memory as a souvenir of success.

One-Testicled Basketball Coach

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Basketball Coach

Legend/Joke

 

My informant told me a story about the basketball coach at his school:

 

“We had this really mean basketball coach, who would often get angry at students for messing around. He would get all angry and red and would scream at the kids when they acted out of order. The funny thing was, though, that his voice would go really high when he yelled. People thought it was really funny, so it was hard to take him seriously. They would say that he, during a practice, wasn’t watching and got hit in the nuts with a basketball, so he lost a testicle and thats why his voice is so high and he’s so angry all the time — compensating for the missing testicle.”

My informant enjoyed the story and said people brought it up  with their friends whenever the coach got mad at them.

The story is a means of undermining the seriousness of the Coach’s anger, belittling the Coach and empowering the students to battle the coach’s authoritative yelling. Making fun of the coach for having only one testicle, students call him less of a man, using comedy to feel less intimidated by his shouting.

 

Basketball Superstition: Rolaids and Army Socks

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Partner at Ernst & Young
Residence: Manhattan Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 15th, 2012
Primary Language: English

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “So growing up I played basketball, and my dad was a basketball coach. And basketball was the most important thing in my life. I played basketball- I was like Jack across the street, I played basketball every day. Every year, every day I would be out shooting hoops and what not. I was pretty good, I was a good shooter. But shooters are very superstitious and there was a certain amount of you get hot, and you don’t get hot, right? Where your shooting is off, so you have good nights and you have bad nights. Well, part of that is psychological.  So my dad, my dad who was the coach, he had a really nervous stomach. And so he would buy not rolls, but boxes of Rolaids. These white tablets, and he kept them in this brown cardboard box with no writing on it. So the players would notice that Coach Paul had these, so he got the idea that he would tell his players that these were shooting pills that would help you shoot the ball better. And so, it became a big joke, but he used to hand them out before the game to everyone and they were the quote “magical” pills. And everyone knew that they probably weren’t, but we all felt like it was good luck to eat one of Coach Paul’s Rolaids before the game to help our shooting. So I became very superstitious, I always had to have a Rolaid before every game. And my socks, my Pete Maravich socks. Pete Maravich was a great basketball player who died very young. His dad was also a basketball coach, and he wore these grey old army socks. And he was a great player, and he wore these baggy old army socks that he was always wiping his hands on. And uh, so I bought some and I had some baggy grey army socks and I used to wear them because Pete wore them.”

Analysis:

As an athlete, there is a tremendous pressure to do well.  While the outcome of the game is largely from the collective or individual effort of the players, there is a psychological necessity to create familiarity and order in your sport so that your mind remains calm and focused during the game.  To create a sense of peace, athletes have come up with many different rituals to perform before the event so that their mind becomes free of anxiety and focused on what they need to do.  This can be a number of things that vary on the sport or individual, such as taking time to stretch by yourself before running a race or picturing yourself doing well during the game.  This kind of homeopathic thinking is also very common in basketball.

The superstitions my informant mentioned are ones that are unique to him, though I have heard of similar rituals in my research such as basketball players having a lucky pair of shoes they always wear for a game.  The Rolaid superstition serves as two functions. One, it is a unique tradition that the Arcata High School basketball team shared during the time my informant played that created a sense of community with the players by having this ritual.  This sense of community is important with playing in a sport that relies on the collective effort of a team.  The second function is that the Rolaids are part of a homeopathic magic that helps the players get into the mind-set that they will succeed.  Having a winning attitude is an integral part of performing well in any sport.

The other superstition involving the Pete Maravich socks is also a form of homeopathic magic.  The informant believed that by wearing the same kind of socks Pete Maravich wore, he would be able to perform as well as Pete Maravich.  Thus creating the same kind of winning attitude that the Rolaid ritual gave to the players.  While my informant no longer plays on a basketball team, he has taken his sock superstition with him into his professional life.  He once mentioned to me that he has a favorite pair of socks he likes to wear for important business presentations.  In this sense he is using the ritual he learned as a basketball player to create a winning attitude in business, which is also integral to successful proposals or negotiations.

My informant was born in 1957 Arcata, California to a high school basketball coach and his wife.  After earning his undergraduate degree in engineering from the University of California, Davis, he moved to southern California to obtain his MBA in business from the University of Southern California.  He now a partner at Ernst & Young. He lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with his wife and has two children.