Supersition In The Way : Rituals Bring Comfort to Athletes

Amanda Beard doesn’t believe in luck.

It wasn’t luck, she said, that crowned her with championships in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis last month.

It wasn’t luck that pushed her to the wall in 2 minutes 26.25 seconds in the 200, the second-fastest time ever by an American woman.

And it wasn’t that teddy bear either.

At the trials, 14-year-old Beard carried a teddy bear around the pool deck. The media set their lenses on the endearing shot and began calling the stuffed animal her good-luck charm.

Beard would like to set the record straight.

“I don’t have any good luck charms,” she said.

The teddy bear is dressed in a black and blue swim parka with white letters spelling Novaquatics, Beard’s Irvine-based swim club. The bear was a recent gift from a friend, however, and not a long-held talisman.

Although superstitions are found among athletes in all sports, the degree and eccentricity of it varies.

For elite swimmers, who travel around the country to meets, objects are more often intended to cure homesickness than to fend off evil pool spirits.

Beard, who also swims for Irvine High, carries pictures of her dog, Jerry Garcia, her two cats, Angel and Dodger (who are not named after the baseball teams), her rabbit, Emmett, and her four birds, Figro, Tweety, Goldie and Getaway.

“A lot of the swimmers take things with them that are familiar, as opposed to being superstitious,” Novaquatics Coach Dave Salo said. “When they go set up in a hotel room, they like something familiar and they sleep better.”

Softball, like its baseball cousin, is rife with superstition.

Fourth-ranked Woodbridge is among the most superstitious of teams. Going into the final game against El Toro with the Sea View League title still in doubt, the mother of a player brought a stock of bananas for the team. They ate the bananas, then downed El Toro. Lizzy Lemire then had her mom bring bananas before every playoff game, and Warriors didn’t lose again. They won the Division II title.

Of course, was it eating bananas that was responsible for the playoff success, or not washing their uniforms?

“Lizzy Lemire is our biggest superstition freak,” Woodbridge Coach Alan Dugard said.

Lemire has to wear a uniform number that equals six in some fashion. She wore 6 in soccer, and on the softball team, she wears 24, figuring that 2 plus 4 equals 6.

“We never cross bats in the dugout,” Lemire, a third baseman, said. “That’s bad luck.”

When the Warriors run before games, the players line up in a certain order. If teammates are walking together at school, they must never cross a pole.

Before games, as the players get on one knee to watch the opposing team warm up, Lolita Harper must be to Lemire’s right.

Each player has a specific seat on the bus when they travel, a seat assignment that never changes. When a senior graduates, the spot opens up to a new member of the program, but not an existing one. “Lucky seats,” Lemire calls them.

“Oh, one other thing,” she says. “Every other game, when we’re doing our team cheer, we have to spit in a circle.”

Others have different uses for dirt. Pacifica’s Toni Mascarenas draws an L in the batter’s box before every at-bat for her friend, Foothill’s Lauren Bauer, who draws a T.

Pacifica’s Natasha Sisco must be handed her bat before every at-bat by teammate Page Lubbock, followed by a high-five from Jaree Terkeurst. But that didn’t help Sisco in the field. Although she fractured her glove-hand thumb while catching in a freak accident, she was batting .484 with 10 RBIs in 11 games at the time.

Speaking of gloves, Marina third baseman Monica Mora never puts down her glove unless she’s batting. If she’s getting a drink, she’s got the glove on. Same at practice. Take care of her Rawlings, and the Rawlings will take care of her.

And there are superstitions in style--Garden Grove players wear one red and one black legging during games, but never both of the same color.

Westminster players must wear T-shirts from the tournament they put on last year. In their first two losses, Coach Conway deShay wasn’t wearing that shirt, but was instead wearing his “Coach Conway” shirt. Bad coaching move.

Most baseball and softball coaches don’t like the equipment bagged before the game is over. Canyon players were recently proselytized to this belief after they tempted the spirits against El Toro.

Canyon led the second game of a doubleheader, 4-1, when El Toro got two runners on base in the top of the seventh inning.

“I turned around and all the equipment was put away and I flipped,” Canyon Coach Lance Eddy said. “They unhooked the helmet pole and dropped all the helmets on the ground and got out all the catcher’s equipment. We got our third out and went home.”

Superstitions come in as many forms as individual athletes: the Laguna Beach girls’ soccer players don’t shave their legs during a winning streak and Foothill boys’ volleyball Coach Pat Manning insists certain warm-up music and the two girls keeping stats during the Knights’ games are good luck.

Some superstitions are more common than others. Almost every basketball player, for instance, has a free-throw ritual--bounce, bounce, spin the ball, bounce, shoot, or some variation.

About four years ago, Bill Gayton, professor of psychology at University of Southern Maine, studied basketball players’ pre-shot rituals. Gayton asked players at the school to shoot free throws two ways: the first however they wanted, and the second without any pre-shot ritual.

Although he found they didn’t shoot as well without their rituals, he can’t explain why.

“I could make the argument that ritual gets anxiety-level under control. . . on the other hand, they may have simply told themselves [they were] not going to be able to shoot as well,” he said.

Maybe more athletes should follow the teachings of Amanda Beard.