Being the man I am, I love sports. The best part of a sport is the thrill of a win. Most people will say, wins only come from hard work and effort, but I think there is more to it. During the basketball season I take many extra steps to ensure a victory. I follow these set steps, these superstitious winning ideas, once it is game day.
It all starts in the morning. The first thing I do on a game day is prepare a bowl of oatmeal. I eat instant oatmeal, banana and cream flavor, for home games, but away games differ slightly.
Before away games, I eat plain instant oatmeal and add sliced bananas to the mix. This came to be during my freshman year. I was going to be playing a JV game that night, and looked for oatmeal. It was nowhere to be found, so I had to improvise. Later that night, once the game started, I felt energized and good. I played one of my better games that year.
My school schedule doesn’t change much for game days. I put on the selected clothing that each member of the team wears, and continue on with my day.
But, once school is over, my pre-game begins. For home games, I travel home and prepare cheese pizza rolls. I only eat 15 though, because any less won’t provide me with enough energy and eating any more will upset my stomach. I came up with the perfect pizza roll ratio over the course of one year, and it still holds up today.
Away games are a little less determined. For them, I eat a meal with the team. It varies from game to game, so it’s not something I plan.
This leads into the next phase of my pre-game, my choice of music and attire for warm-ups. For home games, I leave myself two options: I can either wear my cut-off IU shirt or my cut-off plain white tee under my jersey. I started wearing only exclusively these two shirts during my sophomore year. We went to a weekend tournament, and I didn’t expect to proceed in that tournament any further then the two guaranteed games. So, I only brought those two shirts, but we won that game and won again. These shirts had some form of magical, basketball-enhancing abilities in them, so I continue to wear them today.
For away games, I wear a cut-off purple basketball shirt from when I was in sixth grade. I started wearing this shirt during my sophomore year. I just finished a JV game, and something happened with an older player, where I got to dress for Varsity game. I just luckily brought this purple shirt to wear as an undershirt for a polo. In the heat of the moment, I tossed it to junior Carter Chastain and he ripped the sleeves off, while I got dressed. So, I wear this shirt to remember my first time dressing on the Varsity team.
Superstitions are a weird thing. While I know superstitions don’t affect my ability to play at all, I still follow my routine every game day. I still attribute all my losses and bad playing to when I don’t follow these good luck rules.
Story by: Todd Osborn
