Tag Archives: football

The Legendary Quarterback from Troy

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant told me the following legend about a Quarterback from Troy. It parallels the football career of USC quarterback Matt Barkley:

There was once this historic quarterback, came to the land of Troy, meant to do big things, but, little did he know, some things behind the scenes would be changing the outlook of his career. As a result, two of his four years ended without much public knowledge, but his last one, he meant to go out on a good note. He came back for the championship, yet, fate was not on his side. Little injuries added up, the teams on schedule beat him up, so it came to an end as a disappointment – but that wasn’t the only disappointment. When looked upon to go onto the next level, the once highly esteemed most wanted quarterback, had to wait three days, going from a projected top ten to the 98th overall pick, yet, that is just another beginning to the story, as he can do so much more now that he has no expectations, on one looking over his shoulder, let’s see if he can make the Philadelphia eagles fly.

The above story obviously parallels Matt Barkley’s career at USC, chronicling his first two years in relative obscurity, his glorious Junior year, and then his disastrous Senior year, in which, he became injured, and then went late in the NFL draft. However, the tale expresses optimism that he will return to greatness in the NFL, and once again rise to prominence. This piece of folklore is interesting insofar as it takes a piece of recent history and turns it into merchen. My informant claimed this story was in his Fraternity’s book of legends, which is a collection of the great stories in the land of Troy. Apparently, at some point, someone turned the history of Matt Barkley into merchen, and recorded it as such to be passed down as Epic.

Backyard Football

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Radio producer and sports media
Residence: Lake Bluff, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/18/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant used to play tackle football – yes that’s right, TACKLE football – in a friend’s backyard, with no pads or helmets or anything.  His friend had a large enough backyard to accommodate play.  Also this was, according to my informant, back in the days before wavers and rampant lawsuits and whatnot.  If you got hurt, you got hurt and went home and that was the end of that.  So everyone would get together at this one person’s house and divide up into teams, usually it would be 5 on 5, but sometimes as big as 7 on 7.  It was self-hike, and you could pass or run.  The backyard was big but it wasn’t quite football field huge, so there were no distance markers, just two end zones marked out.  You had to get a first down or a touchdown or else you would be forced to give up the ball.  First downs were obtained by making two complete passes.  Players were also allowed to throw lateral passes during plays, making the game very “Razzle Dazzle” as my informant put it.

While I have never played padless tackle football, I have played several games of small-field football.  Usually there were one of two ways you could make a first down.  Either you had to cross the halfway point of the field, or you had to make two complete passes during your first four downs.  Also when the ball was turned over on downs, the other team simply took their ball all the way back to where it would be if the original team had made a touchdown.  Interceptions, on the other hand, are played at the spot where the interceptor is deemed down.  Back in the 70’s though, people were not as uptight as they are now about kids getting hurt and roughhousing and such, and parental supervision was hardly required for kids to play sports.  This does not necessarily mean that parents were less concerned with the safety of their children than they are now, but instead that no one wants to get sued, so they make sure that no harm befalls their children or, more importantly, that no harm befalls other children while they are around.  As soon as someone figured out that you can so another person when your child gets hurt at their house, everyone was in a hurry to make sure playdates and games were absolutely safe, lest they get their butt sued.

Last Football Practice Speeches

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chatham, New Jersey
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Last Football Practice Speeches

Tradition

 

My informant described one of his football team’s traditions:  “A tradition of football team was that at end of every season the Seniors would give a talk – each Senior would give a talk in front of the entire football team.”

 

To my informant, “What would they usually say – every Senior speaks after the last practice of the season, marking the end of their football careers. It is very emotional. Seniors impart their wisdom and what they’ve learned and what’s been valuable to them.”

 

The last practice is an example of a liminal time: the Seniors are not quite finished with football. This tradition aids Senior players through the liminal period, providing a finite moment so the Seniors feel they have finished playing. Passing on their wisdom maintains their role in the football society, since their advice will continue to affect players for years. Since football is a very tough sport, and most of the season is spent trying to be tougher, this moment is vital because it is the first time that emotions are really allowed. Thus, players get to see how much their teammates treasure their companionship and time spent together.

Dirty Jersey and Trophy Helmet: Sport Customs

Nationality: Italian- American and "mix of other ethnicities"
Age: 58
Occupation: General Surgeon
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English

A Rugby ritual and a Football tradition as told verbatim by informant:

“One of the team rituals we had playing rugby in college was that we wouldn’t wash our jerseys from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. Um, and so, um, I I don’t know what the why it started but that’s how it was told to me and and uh some people believed it made you look like a rougher tougher team um it certainly made us smell worse. And you know I stuck to that tradition um and you know rugby of course can be a very dirty game and particularly if you play in the rain you’d get incredibly muddy and so you know your shirt you could hang outside if it was really full of mud and then it would dry and cake and you could beat your shirt and get the mud off it but still you had to put it on for the next game, so. I tried to instill a similar tradition uh you know when I played rugby in medical school but the, the other guys weren’t as interested in keeping the tradition. (wife interjects, they both laugh, and he repeats) Some of them did it. It bonds you as a team but also again it was for some players a form of intimidation. If you went out there with a clean jersey you looked like a rookie. But if you went out there with a dirty jersey you looked like you really knew how to play the game.

There was a tradition in football too where in um in football you wear a helmet and in the beginning of the season usually the helmet’s nice and clean, it’s been freshly painted. Well, during the season your goal was to collect as many marks on your helmet as you could uh because we use our helmet to hit people and so you wanted to get scratches and scuff marks and you wanted to get at least a color from every team you played against. It was like a collection of trophies from the other team so you wanted to get a color of every single team you were playing against. And that showed you were always hitting people, that you were a tough guy. And you never wanted the coach to re-paint your helmet during the season. In college it’s a little tougher to do because they wanted to re-paint your your helmet all the time. So literally you had to sometimes take your helmet and keep it with you against team rules so that they wouldn’t paint it. I did it in high school for sure and then I tried to do it as much as I could in college.”

While both customs hold little symbolic or abstract meaning, as the informant suggests the factors of team bonding and intimidation signified by the dirty jerseys and marked up helmets play a big role in physically brutal sports like rugby and football. These traditions provide solidarity while still playing the mental game inherent in any competition. Rugby and football also are particularly dangerous, difficult, and “macho” sports, thus jerseys and helmets function like war-paint in battle, as players animalize themselves in the face of their opponents.

USC Football Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Poway, California
Performance Date: January 2007
Primary Language: English

“Before a USC football game, when walking from the campus to the Coliseum, it is good luck to kick the bases of the flagpoles at the intersection of Trousdale Parkway and Exposition Boulevard.”

 

My informant first heard of this superstition when walking to the first Trojans home game of the 2005 season. He had been to a Trojans football game before, but only with his parents, and they did not pass the intersection of Trousdale and Exposition.  On this particular day, he was walking with a few friends, and on their way to the Coliseum they noticed that everyone was kicking the flagpoles at the intersection.  So they joined in and gave the flagpoles a kick.  My informant didn’t need to ask, and easily figured out this was a traditional practice for good luck.

This tradition is shared by every fan wearing cardinal and gold that passes by that intersection.  My informant suggested that a long time ago, a Trojan fan gave a swift kick to the flagpole, and the football team preformed well and decimated their opponent.  From then on, they probably continued to kick the flagpole before every game and others began to join in.  While this may not be the official history of the superstition, it is likely that it was under these or similar circumstances that the superstition came about.

While many superstitions are believed to affect one’s own luck and fortune, this one is believed to influence the performance of a sports team.  So if a fan passed through the intersection without kicking a flagpole, and the Trojans lost, that fan could be considered liable for that day’s loss.  On the other hand, this is an instance where fans can unite and believe that they actually did something to help their team.