Superstition In Sports Essay

uperstitious beliefs are repeated actions or beliefs that are believed to control the person’s luck and other external factors that are different from their technical performance. Have you ever avoided walking under a ladder, stopped in your tracks when a black crosses your path, or as a kid avoided stepping on cracks in fear your mom’s back actually might break? These are just a few everyday examples of a superstition that people will participate in. Athletes participate in this belief for many different reasons, some easier to explain then others. It can become a way of life or an obsession. Superstition, in sports, is a very controversy topic as some people believe in it whole heartedly, while others think it is a sham. Sports brings out

One study concluded that team sports are more superstitious (Flanagan as cited in Domotor, Ruiz-Barquin & Szabo, 2016) while another concluded individual sports are more superstitious (Bleak and Frederick as cited in Domotor, Ruiz-Barquin & Szabo, 2016). This could be due to the fact that in each of them they have different events and rely on different people. In a team sport there are more uncontrollable situations because you have to rely on the whole team and not just oneself. Although, in an individual sport there is more anxiety and a higher level of need to focus because it falls on only one person. In a team environment, superstition may occur due to peer pressure and to demonstrate the athlete’s commitment to the team and how far they will go for them. Another study also supported that women tend to be more superstitious due to the fact that women tend to have the need to control things more, but they found that male hockey players are more superstitious than female players (Domotor, Ruiz-Barquin & Szabo, 2016). Superstition is about controlling the game which can explain why they also concluded that. However, the fact that male hockey players have more rituals than females disputes the findings of females having a higher probability. In the NHL guys will dress a certain way, one foot first all the time, they’ll make sure they’re last on and first of the ice, and even hitting the

Bouncing the ball, the same number of times before a serve, eating the same food before a game, and bouncing the ball the same way before free throws are just a few ways I show this belief. I have no idea where this started for me, it had to have been subconscious and I’ve just done it automatically all the time. However, if I don’t do one of these things beforehand, it’s not the end of the road, I just have to concentrate on doing well more and I have something to fall back on if I don’t. On the other end of the spectrum, is a girl I worked with in basketball. She considers herself a superstitious person but it did not really come into effect in sports until after she won the state championship her freshman year of high school. Since then she has specific clothing from spandex to her headband that she has to wear. She believes that if she doesn’t wear this and do everything the same then she won’t do well and her team will win. Just recently she lost her headband and started crying and wouldn’t play at all until she found it. She is one end of the spectrum with her beliefs while I am on the other. There are people that believe it’s the end of the world if they don’t do that, and then there’s people that get more nervous and worry more if it doesn’t happen. However, another guy I know, that plays ice hockey, is in the middle