Superstition in sports has played a major role in players’ pre-game activities for as long as anyone could remember.
Athletes have relied on strange acts before playing to explain good performances, break slumps or to explain the post-season collapses that seem to follow certain franchises. Some are better known, such as the Madden curse, a curse that follows the cover athlete of Electonic Arts Sports’ video Madden Football where that player has a poor season or is forced to sit out the season through injury.
The Chicago Cubs are victims of some of the biggest curses in the game.  Riding a 105-year championship drought, the Cubs blame a goat and a black cat for most of their shortcomings. During the 1945 World Series, a local bar owner was kicked out of Chicago’s stadium Wrigley Field because his companion’s smell – a goat – didn’t sit well with the other visitors.
Baseball is home to some of the weirder superstitions in sports.  Retired major leaguer Kevin Rhomberg touched anyone who touched him and refused to make right turns while on the field – probably believing it was wrong to upset the nature of a baseball diamond where running the bases only requires left turns and one of the cardinal sins of baseball is mentioning a no-hitter when a pitcher is in the middle of a no-hitter.
However, baseball isn’t the only sport where superstitions reign supreme. Michael Jordan wore longer shorts than other players when he reached the NBA so he could wear his North Carolina shorts underneath his Bulls shorts, and Louisiana State University head coach Les Miles has been known to sample the grass at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge before games.
“Before every game I listen to the same playlist and when a certain song comes on I have to do a certain things,” Nicholls junior defensive back Josh Dewey said. “For example, first song, I put my left sock on. Second song, right sock. Third song, I dance. For the fourth song, I put my brace on and so on until I’m fully dressed, but every third song I have to dance a little bit.”
Notre Dame University’s players touch their “Play Like Champions Today” sign as they leave the locker room. Clemson University’s touch Howard’s Rock as they run down the hill into Tiger Stadium in Clemson.
Every win takes a bit of luck, and until there is a better method, superstitions will be the source of that luck.