What’s Your Game Day Ritual?

Sports fans are weird. Sports fans are superstitious. As a lifelong Kansas fan, I have engaged in many a superstitious activity to ensure that my team will come out as victors. Of course, as rational human beings, we know that these little superstitions don’t in any way affect the outcome of a game that is hundreds of miles away, so why do we do it? This article from Psychology Today helps to explain it, but I’m not concerned with why, I’m more concerned with what.

For example, one season in the mid to late 1990’s, I wore a long sleeve t-shirt in the opponents color under my favorite KU shirt. Why? Because we happened to win an important game early in the season and I noticed that I was wearing the opponents color scheme under my KU shirt. That tradition lasted until we lost and I deemed that the undershirt didn’t feature the primary color of that school, but rather a secondary color. We went on another streak when I decided on using the primary colors.

Another example: As the 2002 NCAA tournament was set to begin, one of my close friends had just returned from a vacation in the Caribbean. He brought back lots of rum. Before the tip of KU’s first game, we all tipped back a shot. Once Kansas won, we celebrated with another shot. Now, we had to continue this trend or suffer the indignity of being the people who halted a magical run to the Final Four. We continued (and we made the Final Four), and my friend wasted a lot of high quality rum during that NCAA tournament.

So, Rock Chalk Talk, with a big game against Wichita State on the horizon, what are you going to do to prepare for the game and ensure that KU comes out on top?