Very superstitious

I made sure I had on my special socks---white with red trim, and my OU sweatshirt, T-shirt, and ball cap.

Then, we raised our hands for the kick-off as we chanted “OOOO-U!”

My son, Dave, and I are apt to repeat “First-down, first-down, first down,” when OU is in a tight spot on offense, or “turn over, turn over, turn over,” when we’re backed up on defense.

And all our mojo seemed to be working at halftime. We were holding on to a one-point lead.

Then our team slipped into a football coma in the second half.

No amount of jinxing the opponent or nursing our own team back to contention with good luck mantras seemed to work.

Dave shook his head mid-way through the fourth quarter and resigned himself to defeat, “We’re done.”

All our effort, and our team still lost.

I thought of the hilarious 2012 Bud Light TV commercial featuring various superstitious behaviors of football fans: one guy is rubbing a rabbit’s foot, another arranges his beer cans in a specific pattern inside his refrigerator, someone else wears two different colored socks, and a couple holds their hands over their eyes just before a winning field goal. When they see that it’s good, the guy seems to be saying, “I did that.”

The commercial has Stevie Wonder’s 1972 smash hit, “Very Superstitious,” playing in the background and ends with the tag: “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work.”

The reason the commercial was successful was because “it’s tied to human truth,” according to Paul Chibe, then Anheuser-Busch’s VP for marketing.

"The human truth is that when you're an NFL or football fan, you have a superstition for what you do for a game,” Chibe told Business Insider. (His personal one is that if the team he is rooting for is losing, he switches channels. “If I turn it off they'll get back into winning mode.”)

Or so he hopes. 

We resort to such behaviors when we want to feel like we can have some control over how an event beyond our control we will turn out.

I know that repeating, “first down,” when my team has the ball will not increase their odds of actually getting a first down.

But I often do it anyway.

Maybe it relieves anxiety.

My sister-in-law, Lisa, is an intelligent woman, an accountant who is responsible for the pay-roll of a significant number of people. And earlier this year, she wouldn’t speak to my wife for an entire day because Lori jinxed our team by saying, “This will be an easy game.”

It wasn’t; and we lost.

Of course, Lori should have known better and “knocked on wood,” after her blithe prediction.

“I didn’t know I had that kind of power,” Lori chided.

But later that same day, Lori’s team was behind.

“Why aren’t you watching the game out here?” I asked, referring to the room with the best TV.

“Oh, they seem to do better when I’m not in there,” she said from the other room.

I asked one of the deacons in my church, a guy whom I know to be a huge University of Kentucky basketball fan, if he ever engaged in superstitious activities when UK played. “Oh no,” he said, almost scorning the premise in my question.

But then, he confessed, “Well, when UK had that winning streak last year, I did wear this special shirt…”

I smiled.

Only because I’d been there.

You might call me a “Recovering Superstitious Person.”

“Hi, my name is David, and I’m a superstitious person.”

“Hi, David,” I hear thousands respond.

The thing is, I know what I’m doing, and like Barney Fife, I’m not really superstitious, just cautious.

Earlier in the year, we were behind 17 points in the fourth quarter. I couldn’t take the pressure, so I went outside. “If we score the go-ahead touchdown, turn the porch lights on and off,” I requested of Lori.

“I’ve got to get away from this and pray,” I said as I walked out the door. And honestly, I did pray, and not like you might assume I prayed. I DIDN’T pray for my team to win. I prayed for the worship service the next day, my sermon, certain people, God’s Kingdom, the larger perspective that comes with the recognition of life’s more important things.

And then, I saw the light…

…the porch light, that is.

“We came back?” I asked as I stepped inside the house, out of breath from running down the street.

“YES!” Lori screamed.

I later wondered what someone might have thought had they watched me pacing up and down our street only to see me tear off toward my house when our porch lights flashed.

But at the time, it didn’t matter.

I high-fived Lori 7 times, because that would help insure a victory next week.

Which it did.

I’m sure.

Knock on wood.

After all, it’s only weird if it doesn’t work.