Every athlete does it. Some eat the same thing. Some drink the same thing. Some nap at exactly the same time on the day of every big game. Sometimes it’s as easy as putting the same leg in their uniform first. Sometimes it’s the same foot in the same shoe first. Heck, Michael Jordan wore his North Carolina Tar Heel practice shorts under his uniform every game. And those sneakers that made him famous? He wore a new pair of them every game, too.

For some, it’s as simple as a superstition. For others, it’s an intent process. Across-the-board, it’s hard to explain. But to some athletes and fans alike, sports rituals are a way of life.

To explain rituals is to attempt to explain the emotions that are involved with the games we play or the games we watch others play. It’s impossible to guess why sports are a passing thought to some and a near-obsession to others, why sporting events bring some men to tears and bring some women to call in and book these same men to appear on the next “My Husband is a Sports Fanatic” episode of “Jenny Jones”. But to anyone who’s seen a grown adult with a block of cheese on his head or an official Myron Cope ‘Terrible’ Towel in his clutches, you know — that’s just the way it is.

Sure, there are varying levels of fandom, but once you’re a tried-and-true-fan — once you’ve caught the ‘sports bug’ — it’s hard to think about anything but the big game on the day it will be played. It’s a strange, inexplicable virus that strikes randomly – and with a vengeance.

And it’s that same kind of ‘bug’ that generates rituals in all sorts of sports fanatics on the night of the Super Bowl.

Everybody knows someone who reacts to the annual end-of-season event with an outbreak of odd behavior. They paint their faces with the colors of their team, like the couple in the Master Card commercial. They refuse to budge from the one position they were in when their team made a clutch play or received a call in their favor. They wear the same jersey or t-shirt that brought their team luck throughout the entire regular season.

And they’re not afraid to admit when their inadequacy to live up to their rituals causes their team to lose — it could be a slight movement from their designated position; their failure to wear the right shirt or the right socks; the desperate prayer to the heavens, made in haste, that caused the fates to dismiss their request as vain and hold that against them. It’s a tough job, living up to those rituals, complying with all of the rules set by your own mind. It’s hard work, living up to the nagging feeling that your actions have the power to affect the outcome of a sporting event taking place some thousands of miles away.

And while such behavior may seem over-the-top to some, they go a long way in highlighting the underlying importance of the game itself. Sure, in it’s simplest incarnation, it’s 22 grown men chasing a ball of pigskin for 60 minutes, but it’s also much more than that. It’s a cultural celebration. It’s about being right or wrong. Winning and losing. Us vs. Them. For one day out of the year, it’s a chance to sit back, relax, and watch our peers do the one thing that is innate in all of us: the desire to play. Think about it — right, wrong, win, lose, hero, villain, all set to a backdrop of flashing lights, fireworks, and blaring sounds — isn’t it life on the grandest of scales?

In the scheme of things, every ardent fan knows that painting her face, or dying his hair, or wearing her jersey and sitting in the same position may not earn their team the extra one or three or seven points it needs to bring the Lombardi Trophy home. But it will be enough to make the fanatic feel as though he gave it his best effort — that he laid it all on the line. That he bled team colors. That she was bit by the bug, accepted the calling, and — even from a thousand miles away — did all she could do.

And isn’t that what it’s all about?

When the Super Bowl kicks-off at 6 p.m. on January 30, some 72,000 fans will be in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome cheering on their teams. Scan the crowd. Check for the face paint, the hair dye, and the good-luck jerseys. You never know which item could be the one to push your team in the winning direction. Make sure you do your part from home.

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