You may have heard of Michael Jordan’s blue North Carolina basketball shorts, or of Patrick Mahomes’ magical pair of red underwear. Both are rumored to bring the athletes good luck in their sports, but have you heard of the athletic superstitions held by Woodgrove athletes?
Many players have pre-game rituals, whether it takes place by themselves or with their team, done to ensure they play well and enhance their luck for winning. From stick tapping to pixy sticks, our athletes have quite a few peculiar superstitions.
Individually, before each game, basketball player Sadie Shores has a very specific routine and way to execute tasks. Shores informed, “I have to put my shoes on a certain way. I have to put the right one on and then the left one. Then I have to have my hair the same, the uniform has to be tucked the same way, stuff like that.”
For cheerleader Kaylee Stanton, before each competition and game she prays for her team. “Personally, I pray for each one of my teammates by name, just that they will do what they need to do and that nobody will get hurt. That’s just kind of my little thing,” Stanton said.
The cheerleading team as a whole has very interesting rituals as well. Stanton informed, “Well, before games we always wear uniforms, and before competitions we do visualization in our classrooms. We turn on our music and kind of just all close our eyes and do our part of our routine and mentally run through it. We always have pixy sticks. We have it for choreography, we have it for hard practices, and we have it before each competition. We just down a bunch of pixy sticks for the energy.”
In addition to individual routines, the Woodgrove Field Hockey team has a team-wide ritual before each game. Natalie Yurish, a captain of the team, shares that the team does a dance in the locker room and has a certain way to walk out before games. “We have a little dance. I don’t really know how to explain that. For home games we tap our sticks on the top of the locker room door on our way out for good luck,” Yurish informed.
Similarly to individual and team-wide pre-game rituals, there are also team-wide superstitions. Freshman Ryker Cawthorne plays baseball for the Shennendoah Sluggers and the highschool team. He shares that the Shennendoah Sluggers have a team superstition stemming from their vest. “There’s a white vest, and we’ve never used it again because we lost two tournaments in a row wearing them. That’s just sort of our team superstition,” he shared.
Sophomore Noelle Roy swims for the school team, and believes that both her superstitions and pre-game rituals play a role in how she and her teammates perform. Roy shared, “I definitely think that if I’m positive or I have a good routine ahead of [a competition] that we will be more successful. If I have good music playing it helps contribute to the overall team vibe. When the team is positive and excited, it brings us together.”
