Tag Archives: sports ritual

University of South Carolina Game Day Tradition: Burning Tiger

Context:

The informant attends the University of South Carolina, which has an intense football rivalry with Clemson University. This ritual is performed a week before the rivalry game each year.

Text:

Before the rivalry game between Clemson and the University of South Carolina, the students in the engineering school build a large tiger out of natural materials. The informant recalls that most recently they built this tiger out of wood. The tiger represents the mascot of Clemson University. The tiger is burned a week before the game occurs on the practice football field in front of all the students.

Analysis:

This ritual is a ritualesque performance that represents a sense of rivalry and shared group identities through the collective action of building and burning the tiger. This act connects to Jack Santino’s idea in “The Carnivalesque and the Ritualesque” that some events intend to create real effects (i.e. USC winning the rivalry game). Additionally, the construction and burning of the tiger reflects a form of homepathic magic that Frazer describes, where destroying a representation of Clemson’s mascot attempts to show superiority over them. This ritual helps reinforce both in-group and out-group boundaries by showing how folklore can strengthen group identity, while simultaneously sowing divisions within larger regional communities.

Don’t Step on the Chalk Lines

Folklore:
Don’t step on the lines of a baseball field before the game starts. It is bad luck to step on the line during the warm ups or moving through the field before the start of the game.

Context:
The informant is a baseball player who “learned baseball superstitions through players” who heard it from their teammates, coaches, parents. The informant notes it likely “became a thing out of respect… [it’s] respectful to keep it in check.” It preserves the “feel of the game.” Practically, the lines serve as a marker to help play the game and count foul balls which are important for play.

Analysis:
The function of this folklore is a way to help keep the field of the baseball game cleaner before the game. It could hold many functions as a way for more experienced baseball players to identify newer or more inexperienced players. The folklore is spread from older members of the community to younger members. This superstition tends to help preserve values of the community and as the informant discussed, create respect for the caretakers of the field, who may also be their coaches or seniors. 

Rally Cap

Folklore:
Flipping a baseball cap inside out to bring on a rally of good plays in a baseball game. The action can be performed by players or the fans in the stand.

Context:
The informant was a baseball player in Santa Clarita, CA. During games, he or his teammates would perform this ritual to try and help bring good luck or spur on a rally where a lot of good events would happen in quick succession like “a guy gets a hit, a guy walks, a double and they score… a lot of them go with quick bursts of runs.” The informant noted the rally cap “is trying to initate a hot streak,” to get the game on their side and moving.

Analysis:
The ritual is intending to bring good luck and try and spur on the team into a favorable position. The informant noted in the interview that baseball is a game of rhythm that is hard to hold and keep it going. The team aspect and the harder rhythm makes supersitions common to try and create a favorable outcome for the game and the team.

Home Run Celebration

Text: “Every time I hit a home run, everyone at the plate [the base runners and the man on deck] waits and taps helmets when I arrive. We then run back to the dugout together where the rest of the team then celebrates as well.”

Context: My informant is a high school baseball player. He is a junior and hopes to play in college and beyond. This is his celebration every time he hits a home run. 

Analysis: Sports players very often have elaborate rituals associated with certain parts of their game. Sometimes, rituals help players feel calm and collected in important moments. In many cases, such as this one, rituals are meant to celebrate big moments in a game, such as scoring or making a big stop on defense. These rituals are often very performative and exaggerated in order to evoke excitement and energy in both the athlete’s teammates and the crowd. However, my informant’s ritual is rather understated. It is a subtle acknowledgement of his teammates before slightly rowdier celebrations begin back in the dugout. While he didn’t mention this during the interview, it is important to note that my informant is being scouted by colleges and professional organizations to play baseball at a higher level. So, while he is on the field and potentially on camera, he composes himself. Once he is out of sight in the dugout, he might get a little more boastful and excited with his teammates. While a seemingly insignificant part of sports, rituals like these are a way in which athletes present themselves to the outside world. Players can be labeled as “cocky” if their rituals are audacious, for better or for worse. On the other hand, many players, especially those who still are being recruited, may have to act out certain rituals that fit the standards of recruiters, even if it’s not how they truly wish to express themselves on the field. 

Sports Hoodie

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Language: English

Text:

“Anytime ACFC is playing I have to wear my ACFC hoodie or else it’s a guaranteed loss.”

Context:

The informant started doing this in freshman year because nobody cared about women’s soccer and they wanted to market for it. They state that it’s important to them to encourage people to watch women’s soccer and also believed in doing this after wearing it watching their first game and their team won because of it.

Analysis:

This idea marks magical superstition as a ritual behavior is performed with the hopes of influencing the game. More specifically, this acts as sympathetic magic, where the action of wearing the hoodie will influence and help boost the chances of the team winning, and apotropaic magic with the idea of warding off bad luck. In addition, if the person fails to wear the hoodie then the game would be doomed from the start, creating a sense of avoidance ritual by continuously wearing the hoodie so there will be a chance for a victory. Besides representing magical superstition, this also emphasizes material culture with the hoodie. Some people, most that are outside of the sports community, would believe this to be a normal hoodie that one wears with market value, but the informant has a deeper connection to the material. They find it to have a deep personal meaning to the object that makes it invaluable and even giving power to the hoodie, which now acts as a talisman associated with good luck. This ritual behavior establishes identity with the sports folk group as well as acting as a tool that eases anxiety towards a game. It might also act as an explanation as to why a game won or failed with whether or not the hoodie was worn. Because there was a correlation between the object and the victory, the object then develops more power and is seen as something that influences the outcome of a game.