Superstitions In The Life Of A Pro Athlete
The desire to control fate or to simply have a way of sticking with a winning method, superstitions have been around professional sports for a long time.
If any group has a reason to be superstitious, it’s professional athletes.
Your livelihood relies on your ability to consistently replicate physical motions. It’s hardly surprising that you don’t want to change anything about your routines once you find success. However, some pro athletes take these rituals beyond logical extremes.
A ritual is a certain behavior or action that an athlete performs with the belief that these behaviors have a specific purpose, or power, to influence your performance. Many athletes believe that performing a specific ritual before competition improves your performance. These rituals range from the clothes you wear to the foods you eat or drink; the warm up you perform or even the music you listen to.
Superstition is generally something that is initially developed in hindsight, almost by accident and then required in future events. A superstition arises when you have a particularly good (or bad) performance and then try to establish “cause and effect” by reviewing the facts of the day. If you have a great performance you attribute your success to that unusual circumstance and attempt to recreate it before every competition.
We’ve all seen fellow athletes performing ritual movements before competition and have heard stories about the baseball player with his lucky socks or the hockey player with his favorite stick. As you know, in pro sports, superstition and ritual is widespread and considered normal. To the outsider, it may seem silly and strange, but if they consider how athletes use these rituals, they might see that many rituals are strategies that are used in the world of sports psychology. In fact, for some athletes these patterns may actually influence success on the field.
Perhaps the real value in superstition and ritual is the boost of confidence and the sense of control that they provide an athlete. If you believe that doing a specific action or behavior will make you perform better, then you probably will perform better. This is the foundation of sports psychology.
Many athletes use rituals such as visualization or guided imagery, to recreate a particularly successful play or event and experience the feelings you had then as though they are happening now. This recall and visualization prepares you both mentally and physically for competition.
Some Unique Sports Superstitions:
Jason Terry – While at the University of Arizona, Terry started sleeping in his uniform shorts the night before each Arizona game on the logic that it would make the game feel like it was starting sooner. When Terry broke into the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks, he decided to start wearing the shorts of the next day’s opponent, instead. This ritual is fairly tenuous, though, as it requires Terry to procure a pair of uniform shorts from each opposing NBA team. Although his network of connections with equipment managers and former teammates has helped him out, he had to wear Mavericks shorts before each game of the 2006 NBA Finals since he couldn’t find a pair of Miami Heat trunks.
John Henderson - He has Jacksonsonville Jaguars assistant team trainer Joe Sheehan slap him open-handed across the face as hard as Sheehan possibly can. Henderson and Sheehan began the ritual during the 2003 season as a way to get Henderson pumped up for the game by taking the day’s first hit in a controlled environment in the locker room. Apparently the strategy works, as Henderson has twice made the Pro Bowl since this ritual started.
Playoff Beards - Originally a hockey tradition, but since adopted by other sports, the theory holds that a team must put off shaving while still in the playoffs. This promotes a warrior mentality and single-minded focus.
Moises Alou - Most baseball players wear batting gloves to absorb some of the shock of making contact with the ball and to improve their grip on the bat. Alou does not wear gloves but has a system for avoiding calluses and hardening his skin: he urinates on his hands throughout the season. New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada also employs this superstition to aid in his gloveless approach at the plate. Some have questioned the value of this superstition since urine contains urea, a key ingredient in moisturizers that actually soften the skin.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Players form habits and routines that they repeat endlessly when playing, such as Nomar Garciaparra’s batting glove adjustments between pitches or basketball players’ patterns when at the free-throw line. Skill development is all about repetition, and such a repetitive nature seeps into an athlete’s confidence as much as it does his muscle memory.
Batty Behavior - There are all sorts of wacky superstitions related to the protection and pampering of baseball bats. Players can often be found touching their bat with various good luck charms, spitting in their hand before picking up their bat or even sleeping with their bats. Don’t even think about touching another player’s bat.
In the on deck circle, Wily Mo Peña sniffs the pine tar on the handle of his black, 35-inch model C43 Louisville Slugger. He starts at the handle and slowly moves toward the barrel. When he gets near the meat of the bat, he opens his mouth and grips the bat as if he’s being fitted for a mouthpiece.
Stepping On Lines – Some pros will not step on a field or court’s lines when entering the game or it will bring bad luck. Others think it is good luck.
Bruce Gardiner - Spent five years as a forward in the NHL, most notably with the Ottawa Senators. Gardiner would dip the blade of his stick in the locker room toilet. Gardiner’s strange superstition started in his rookie reason in Ottawa in 1996. After going several games without a point, he asked veteran Tom Chorske for advice. Chorske told Gardiner he was treating his stick too well and needed to teach the wood to respect him by dunking it in the toilet.
