Trending
Many individuals and groups of people establish certain traditions, that they do, or celebrate, during the course of their lives, some of them handed down generation to generation, some which are relatively new, and some that have been around for a long time. Some traditions may appear to be insignificant to many, but they are very special and significant to those who do or celebrate their traditions.
There are many traditions that come from the world of sports by individual athletes, groups or teams of certain sports, or combinations of both. The tradition of the Masters Golf Championship is marked by the previous champion assisting the most recent champion in putting on the ceremonial Green Jacket, is a well-known tradition in sports. That tradition began at the Open Championship in the 1930s and the Royal Liverpool Club awarded red jackets. When Augusta opened three years after that Bobby Jones, a Red Jacket recipient himself, brought up the jacket idea to the Augusta National Golf Club. The Augusta National Club began the Masters Tournament in 1934. In 1949, Sam Snead became the first recipient of the coveted Green Jacket, green because the Augusta National Golf Club decided to award green jackets resembling the green color of the azalea bushes bordering the course. (Winning the Green Jacket carries certain hard rules regarding its wearing.)
The handshakes of hockey players from both teams at center ice following a playoff series has been around since 1907. It's a tradition that has lasted these past 119 years. Also in hockey, it's been a tradition for many players to kiss the Stanley Cup after winning it, and allowing many players from the winning team individually hoist the cup and circle the ice in front of all the fans in the arena.
It has become a tradition in the NFL for players to do something in the end zone to celebrate scoring a touchdown. There is no unified celebration, but the ones displayed by players must not be of the taunting nature, must not have any reference to violence, and they must not be of an illegal or immoral nature.
Basketball teams have traditions too. In college, the cutting down of the nets is done after a team, men's and/or women's, pass the scissors from coaches and players to each other to each snip one of the ties to the iron rims.
Many college football teams participate in the singing of their school's alma mater, or university song after their games as their tradition. The best college football traditions of that nature, in my mind, take place during the annual Army-Navy football clash. Other college traditions might have something to do with the team uniforms, dubbing certain games "Black-outs, White-outs, etc. Marching Bands also add to traditional happenings in stadia all over the country. Some schools have special chants which involve the fans, they have taken popular songs and tweaked them to be unique to their schools, and some have specific crowd activity such as the University of Wisconsin's "Jump Around."
Baseball has its 7th Inning Stretch, and the swinging of towels, which actually started with the NFL's 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers, then crossed over to baseball by the Minnesota Twins and their Homer Hankies, and now playoff baseball teams hand out team towels for fans to wave at exciting moments in the games, and teams sometime ask the fans attending the playoff games to "Rock" a certain color (one of their team colors) to create an in-stadium sea of red, or blue, or white, whatever the team requests.
There are many other traditions in sports, but the one I find the best, and the most touching, the most meaningful, and the most impactful, is the one that happens at the University of Iowa's Kinnick Stadium at home games during the football season.
On September 2, 2017, "The Hawkeye Wave," a tradition began, which is still done today, where the University of Iowa's Football Team, its Coaches, Staff, Fans, Game Officials, and now includes their opponents and their opponents' coaches, staff, and fans, at the end of the first quarter, turn away from the playing field and toward the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital which overlooks the Football Stadium and has large windows from the bottom floor to the top to which many of the patents and their visitors can look down on the game. They wave to the young patients, their visitors, and hospital staff, just to say hello to those looking down in Kinnick Stadium. Part of this ceremony that has expanded the tradition, is the selection of a "Kid Captain," a patient at the pediatric hospital, who helps select a song to be played during the wave. The idea inspiring this tradition came from a fan who, on social media, suggested it following the completion of the new hospital overlooking the football stadium.
This tradition has become one that many from the hospital, the football program, the university, and much of Iowa City, Iowa look forward to and participate in when they can. I am not sure anyone has been able to calculate the number of smiles from everyone who has ever been any part of the Hawkeye Wave, but I am guessing it could be somewhere in the seven-figure range. There is no cost to any of the participants, there are no donations asked for, and yet the end result of bringing joy to all involved is priceless.
There are so many great and fun traditions that we see in the sports world, but the VFTB ranks "The Hawkeye Wave" at the top of the list. Kudos to the person who suggested it back in '17, and to all who have been a part of this amazing tradition, which emphasizes something more important than wins and/or losses, championships and/or trophies, and rankings and/or status. Not sure if that's true, look at the faces of the kids Hawkeye waving down to those in the football stadium.