The Psychology of Sports-Superstitions in Sports

Some lucky charms are magically delicious

by Jason Carney
scroll staff

What do bubble baths, super-heroes and radio static have to do with an athlete’s success in sports?

Apparently everything.

Skill, ability and practice take a backseat to unseen powers for the subscriber to superstition. While athletes certainly rely on talent and practice as a means to success, many take an unorthodox step further and beckon to a dogma of luck.

“Success is such a capricious thing in sports that athletes will do anything to win,” Cole Johnson, a senior from Salem, Ore., said.

And he would know. He speaks from experience.

“Before games or meets, while I was alone, I would turn a radio to pure static and pretend I was the only person on the earth,” Johnson said.

Richard Lustberg, a sports psychologist based in New York, said athletes develop superstitions or rituals as a “coping mechanism” to deal with the pressure to succeed.
“Athletes begin to believe, and want to believe, that their particular routine is enhancing their performance,” Lustberg said.

Johnson is not the only student at BYU-I to hinge a sporting performance on a ritual or superstition in attempt to “enhance their performance.”

Dana Johnson, a freshman from Cookesville, Tenn., has a very frothy form of a pre-game ritual.

“I get my bubble bath all ready the night before the track-meet, and then I set my spikes at the end of the tub,” she said. “I then focus on my spikes and feet and even talk to them to get myself pumped up,”

Talking to inanimate objects or even to oneself is all part of the game when superstition is involved. In fact, Bret Gadbury, a junior from Cheyenne, Wyo., said he feels he finds superpower in doing so.

“Before a track meet, I talk to myself and convince myself that I am The Flash,” he said.

For the superstitious athlete, it is common to feel that without the superstitious ritual or act, one cannot perform normally.

Melissa Hawks, a junior from Sugar City, Idaho, is compelled to brush her teeth right before every basketball game she plays.

“If I don’t, I just don’t feel like I can play,” Hawks said.

Concerning her bubbly preparation, Dana Johnson feels the same way.

“I don’t feel like I will perform as well if I don’t do it,” Johnson said.

Another prevalent element among athletes’ superstitious habits is strict repetition.

“I have to put my pads on in the exact same order before every game,” Ferenc Petho, a hockey player and junior from Ramsey, N.J., said. “It has to be the same way every time or it just will not work.”

But is there really a “magic” force derived from practiced ritual that helps athletes achieve superior performance?

“In reality, it’s probably just practice and confidence that’s making them perform better,” Lustberg said.

He also said that superstitions are circular. If an athlete has success and then attributes that success to some type of different act, such as wearing a certain article of clothing or some kind of routine, the athlete will continue to repeat the act.

Other prominent examples of superstitions include all sorts of variations of lucky articles of clothing, lucky equipment, specific pre-game music, avoiding stepping on lines before a game, eating certain foods and precise warm-ups.