What Are Your Crazy Sports Superstitions?
By Pants | July 31, 2008
Category: The Sideline Report
Pants blogs for PhillyJock every Thursday
Where has the summer gone? It seems like just yesterday I was excited about the thaw and pitchers and catchers reporting. Now we find ourselves in the middle of football training camp reading up on the dailies at Lehigh. The all-star break is over, trades and who will be around in October are the talk of baseball and college football is on the mind. By the way did you hear Brett Favre wants to play football again?
In my family, we were taught from a young age that blue and gold were the colors we wore on Saturdays in the fall; I don’t know that we were given an option, possibly green on special occasions. But we knew that green on us was much different than the green on the players. When we saw those green jerseys it was trouble, Grandma Kay immediately broke out the rosary beads and we learned new words to try out on Franklin Playground from our parents, aunts and uncles and yes even Father Butler.
Remember this guy?
We’re Irish and Grandpa Bill was a Double Domer – Notre Dame ungrad and Law School, there was no question who our team was and no birthdays celebrated on gamedays for fear of a loss, which clearly meant it was going to be the worst year of your life. We bleed the blue and gold and as fun as that was in the 80s and early 90s, when it was a special treat to be able to put temporary ND and Leprechaun tattoos on our cheeks and wear our little cheerleader costumes, ok jersey for me, but you get the point, it hasn’t been as much fun recently. As we got older we realized that people HATE Notre Dame, I mean they hate them. We learned to defend our team, which wasn’t hard, look at the history, but we had to do it, it’s what we were taught. It was like defending our families and now our more permanent tattoos, which have grown since getting them in 1998, do the talking for us.
This week ESPN did an article on how Ohio State is the new Notre Dame, first of all PALEASE! (Sorry BJH). Although, I don’t know why I got so defensive, the article was about the new team to hate – the Irish will be back and we will take our title back! I immediately called my friend Jody, who I whole heartedly admit I am only friends with because she went to Notre Dame and might take the losses worse than anyone I know. Our friendship has obviously grown, but I stand by the fact that we are only friends because she saw my Notre Dame license plate at a party and it sparked a conversation. I started thinking about some of my other friends and why I am friends with them, turns out different sports have brought us together. Whether it is for the love of the same team or absolute hatred for each other’s teams our friendship is based on sport.
It has become a bit ridiculous the tricks that our minds play with us when it comes to gameday. For example Jody won’t watch the Irish with my family anymore, because the two times she has – they have lost. I have a distinct memory of a friend being in the bathroom while watching Notre Dame at a young age. Notre Dame scored while he was in there, from then on whenever we needed a score my Mom would tell my cousin Michael to get in the bathroom, usually accompanied by a punch to the chest. I personally blame the Birds losing in the Super Bowl on myself, for not watching the game where I had watched every game that season – the Moose.
You all know what I am getting at – you put your jersey on left arm before right, you eat breakfast at the same place, you notice everyone sitting in the same seats at Sunday mass – we all have them, our gameday quirks. From the way you paint your chest to the set-up of your tailgate, your mind has told you that you have to do things the same way as last week, because they won, and if you do it differently well they will lose ALL because of you.
The quirks go along with our gameday friends, from the guy sitting next to you at the bar, who will inevitably be there next week , to your old pal who is in your life for one reason only – you share insaneness for your teams. I blame mine on my crazy Irish family – everyone was in the same seats each week, same food was on the table, and no one moved unless it was a commercial.
So tell us Philly, what are your quirks and why?
July 31st, 2008 at 11:40 am
when i was living in new zealand most recently it was really hard to get the eagles games…i ended up ordering the online radio package so i could listen to merrill & mike on my laptop…the catch being that i had to listen to them at 5am Mondays (or tuesday afternoon for a monday night game). i still wore my same jersey, ate the same foods, ect….as if 10,000 miles away i had any control over the game. but i THOUGHT i did. every once in a while i’d catch myself and say ‘what the fuck am i doing?’ but that’s part of the fun of being a fan.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I can relate to this whole piece. There is one sentence of the article that especially speaks to me. I really really hate Notre Dame. Ohio State can never replace them.
…and 500 over the last ten years should not justify an extended NBC contract. I guess the Nielsen rating trumps the BCS ranking?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Damn right the Nielsen rating means more… if I could get the Irish or the Buckeyes on Comcast I’d give em a contract bigger than Richards’.
But honestly, everyone hates the buckeyes too, but differently…. more like Eagles fans hate the pewter-pants of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Notre Dame has almost a Red Sox/Patriots connotation without any of the recent success.