I was listening to the radio today, Thursday, January 12, 2012, when someone mentioned that the next day would be Friday the 13th. The idea of superstitions was discussed, and it gave me the idea for this post. Actually, a couple of them, but I'll start with this one.
Since I've got sports on the brain pretty much most of the time, (especially during football season) I thought it would be fun to do a post talking about superstitions in the sports world. I intended to do strictly the NFL, but somewhere along the line I found some interesting and amusing sites on google and decided to deviate slightly.
Goodness, I almost don't know where to start! Well, I suppose I'll begin with the obvious. Sports players have many, many superstitions. I personally found some of them silly, amusing, disgusting and just plain weird.
I should probably insert at this moment that I don't really believe in superstitions. Frankly speaking, Friday the 13th has never been more of a lucky or unlucky day for me. Of course I've had bad days in my life that fell on Friday the 13th. But I've also had okay days. I suppose I've never had a "great" day on the 13th, but I have certainly had more average days than bad days. I finally concluded that I didn't really need to worry about it.
(Now watch me say that and have something bad happen to me this first Friday the 13th of 2012!)
I want to also take a moment to say that while I find most of these superstitions completely ridiculous, like religion, etc, I'm not dissing it. No disrespect intended. This is just my humble opinion.
However, I digress....athletes and their superstitions. In the sites I browsed, they came in many ways. Everything from wearing a certain kind of clothes under a uniform, growing a playoff beard, eating chicken before a game, bouncing a ball a certain way, or, most disgustingly, drinking urine.
Dear reader of this blog, I thought about regurgitating the information already done by the authors of these articles, but I thought, perhaps you'd like to go and read them for yourself. Truthfully, I would only be repeating what's already given and it seems almost pointless.
Let's start with a subject that you may or may not have heard about. I certainly didn't. Well, I find this superstition the most...er, uninteresting, but apparently it has a long history. I'm referring to the "Playoff beard". I need not explain more, correct? I think it sounds explanatory enough. (Lol)
I read one or two articles that said the playoff beard was started by a hockey player. I didn't read enough, I confess, to find out if other sites reference this hockey player.
In any event, I found a Wikipedia page (yes, I know, Wikipedia, but it's useful for some things, right?) that talks about the infamous playoff beard, and you can check it out for yourself. Sorry folks, I didn't read it. I did skim it a bit and saw many, many athlete names. So if you're a beard man or beard woman, knock yourself out! :)
Playoff beard - Wikipedia
While googling for sport superstitions, I did by accident happen upon the Snopes page that talked about the "Madden Curse". I confess, I've heard of the Madden Curse, but never really looked into it.
For those who aren't aware, the Madden Curse is simple. An NFL athlete who's been doing quite well, will sign a deal to be on the cover of John Madden's video game. Then they wind up getting hurt and missing a bunch of games. Famous players "cursed" include Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb, Marshall Faulk, just to name a few.
I find Snopes has compiled an interesting (albeit outdated) documentation of athletes supposedly affected by the Madden Curse.
Also, while reading about the Madden Curse, look at the "Sports Illustrated Curse" and the "Campbell's Chunky Soup curse" while you're at it.
Snopes.com: The Madden Curse
Okay, if you didn't go for the Wikipedia thing on the Playoff Beard, I found another funny article that has a top 10 list of athletes and their superstitions. This is a good one folks, and I would highly recommend reading it.
I won't spoil things for you, but take a gander. See which athlete...ahem...wore a golden thong as they believed it brought them luck.
Or, read about why one athlete drank urine, believing it helped cleanse the body. *Yuck!*
10 Most Superstitious Athletes - Men's Fitness
Keeping along the line of athletes, how about the number 13? I found another article listing players from all sports that either started out wearing or wore for their careers the number 13. As the writer of this article says, be the judge for yourself. Lucky or unlucky?
Sports Superstitions: The Number 13 — Infoplease.com
Last, but certainly not least, here is a forum I stumbled upon where a member asked the question, what superstitions/rituals as a fan do you follow? Something definitely worth reading. Some of the things people did...I think they're crazier than the athletes! :) For example, watching TV from the same TV every time. Standing up while watching or needing your hair clean. I won't say more. There aren't that many on this site and I'd rather you read them for yourself.
NFL Forum: Superstitions in football
That's pretty much it folks. I'm sure there are more, but you know what they say about too much of a good thing. (wink)
Friday, January 13, 2012
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