Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

Anonymous

In all sports there are strange superstitions and traditions that only a select group know the origin or meaning. These rituals are meant to bring victory to the athletes. Today I’d like to enlighten GaG to an interesting ritual at my high school.

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

I went to a pretty standard high school in the US. As per the tradition in the fall everyone took senior photos and exchanged them. My best friend had given her boyfriend her senior photo and he had put it in his bag with the intention of bringing it home. However he was the goalkeeper for our school’s soccer team and the picture had fallen into his goalie gloves. So when he tried to put the gloves on later that afternoon for a game he found the picture in his glove! With nowhere to put the picture he slid it into his cup-jock under his shorts for safekeeping.

During the game he made some great saves and even saved a last minute penalty to ensure our team won! After that he was convinced that her picture in his athletic cup was good luck!

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

I could not stop laughing when my best friend told me this! And I was literally crying tears of laughter when she told me that some guys on the football team planned to play a playoff game with their girlfriend’s pictures in their athletic cups!

The football team went on to beat two teams in the playoffs that supposedly had no business beating. During those games apparently every guy in a relationship had his girlfriend’s senior photo in his cup!

The same group of guys continued this tradition on the basketball team and by the time the spring sports arrived almost every guy on the lacrosse and baseball teams had a photo in their cup.

The guys now were just putting any women they liked in there. One guy had the girl from the RJ Berger TV show.

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

The baseball team’s first baseman had Selena Gomez in his athletic cup.

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

And the star lacrosse player wore a cup with Rihanna in it.

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

Both the baseball and lacrosse teams did incredibly well that year and the lacrosse guys were headed for a perfect season with their balls protected by both the cup and their models/actresses/girlfriends.

But then tragedy struck. The lax team was unbeaten with four games to go. One guy had put a picture of the girl he liked in his nut protector and word had gotten around to the girl. She wasn’t happy about it understandably and thought it was extremely creepy. She talked to the principal (imagine the awkwardness of that) who promptly suspended the lacrosse player for sexual harassment. The guys were no longer allowed to put pictures in their cups after that and guess what happened? They lost all four remaining games and their playoff game.

A strange tradition but it worked…

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks

Girlfriends, Cups, and Winning Streaks
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