By James Kay
Superstitions have long been normal in sports.
Ex-NFL running back Marshawn Lynch used to eat Skittles before (and sometimes during) his games. NBA legend Michael Jordon wore his North Carolina shorts under his Bulls uniform because he thought he performed better in them. MLB star Alex Rodriguez took the socks he wore in previous games and made voodoo dolls out of them to try to shake off his occasional batting slumps.
OK, maybe that last one isn’t true, but athletes everywhere swear by their pregame sanctions and rituals. Hawkeye freshman volleyball player Cali Hoye is no exception.
“Before the game, I go to 7-11 or any gas station and get a Starbucks coffee drink,” she said. “When I arrive at the arena, I have fruit snacks and Capri Suns that I have already in my locker. When we are dancing around in the locker room before the game, I do ‘the worm.’ After that, Molly [Kelly] braids my hair.”
Hoye said all of this in a span of 23 seconds as if it were some habitual activity that everyone regularly does. It is something she has crafted and tinkered with since she was a freshman at San Clemente High School in California.
One of Hoye’s oldest traditions, when she was a star on her volleyball team, was that she put up her hair in two braids if she was going outside her native state of California. She puts it up in one braid if she is playing at home.
“I think I did two braids when I was out of state, and we were playing well, so I just went with it,” Hoye said. “I didn’t know if I would do two braids here in Iowa since I live here now, so I do a hybrid of a ponytail and a braid whenever we play at home.”
Since moving to Iowa, Hoye has shared her warmup with her teammates who have found it to be entertaining. During this past summer, the team had a questionnaire to fill out with fun facts about themselves and the program. When asked who had the strangest pregame ritual, Hoye had an answer none of her teammates expected.
“I think everybody was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ It was hilarious,” senior Alyssa Klostermann said. “It seemed ridiculous at the time, but now we are used to it, and we have sort of adopted her weirdness as a team.”
Letting Cali be Cali is a common theme throughout the locker room.
“When I saw her do the worm for the first time, I was not surprised,” Kasey Reuter said and laughed. “It fits her personality so well, and she is so fun. When we first saw it, I thought, ‘Well it looks like we are going to be doing this before every match.’ It has been great.”
Whatever Hoye is doing, it has most certainly worked; her team is having one of the best seasons the program has seen in a while.
“It is something that prepares me and gets me going for the game,” Hoye said. “It’s sort of something that [my teammates] say, ‘She’s weird, but let her do it.’ ”