The pressure is on when an athlete steps up to take their turn in the game or match. The adrenaline is flowing, the nerves are spreading. Athletes must find a way to calm themselves down; they turn to familiar routines to create consistency. Athletic superstitions have been around for centuries as athletes adopted little tips, techniques, or tricks that they think help them perform better.
These superstitions can start at a young age and develop overtime. Five female athletes at FHS, juniors Madison Wright, Jocelyn Torres, Katherine Pehl, Addison Schoessow, and Mackenzie Weirich, have all developed superstitions of their own to use at game time.
Pehl has differing superstitions for each of her many sports. Any time she has been unable to complete these routines, she has played bad or made many mistakes. These superstitions have become a part of her high school athletic career as she has kept the same ones over the years.
“I play volleyball, basketball, and track,” Pehl said. “For volleyball I have to wear a specific bracelet every time we warm up, for basketball I usually drink an energy drink, and for track I listen to music for a really long time.”
Torres plays soccer at FHS. Her superstitions involve having a special hairstyle or signature look on game day. If she does not have the same look at every game, she does not stress about it; she does not believe that a lack of abiding by superstitions leads to failure.
“Honestly, I think you would still do good. It’s just about the skill, not really how you look or dress,” Torres said. “My old superstitions were the people I played with. If you play with the people you like, you will do better.”
Schoessow, a basketball, track, and softball player, has a unique view about athletic superstitions and which ones she chooses to use.
“For each and every sport my superstition is the same,” Schoessow said. “Having a superstition to me is a superstition. I can never keep anything the same or do stuff that is constantly similar.”
She just recently adopted this strategy as she had many changing superstitions in middle school and freshman year. She believes that having a specific superstition would mess her up because she can never seem to follow the same routine.
Weirich competes in running and field events at FHS track meets.
“Before I go into blocks I have to tell myself not to mess up and say a little prayer, if I don’t I always mess up,” Weirich said. “RPR is what Coach Aldrich makes us do; it surprisingly works really well if you do it all the way. If I don’t do it, my time is bad.”
RPR involves stimulating specific muscle regions in the body to get them warmed up and ready to use. She believes that these superstitions directly correlate to her success.
Wright, who does both softball and track at FHS, has the fear of failure if she can not complete her superstitions; she is very serious about them and their purpose. She has stuck with her superstitions for all of high school making sure that her routine does not change.
“I have used the same batting gloves all of high school; they are not batting gloves any more,” Wright said. “They do not provide any protection at all.”
Like many other athletes she has formed her own ways to deal with her nerves over the years.
“I do the same exact hairstyle every game, and I have to sit at the same place on the bus,” Wright said. “I always have to put my catcher’s gear on. No one else can do it because then I feel like they would mess it up. If you are on my softball team please don’t put my catcher’s gear on me.”
