For example, Stanley will eat a certain break-fast-say, two tried eggs-on the first day of a tournament he says. If he wins, he will continue to eat the same breakfast. If he loses, he will eat something else.

For example, three years again the Faster Bowl Tennis Tournament, Stanley says he listened to the one song on Bruce Springsteen's "Darkness on the sleep. He also ate a hot fudge sundae every night of the tournament.

He consequently-or coincidentally-continued his initially strong performance into the finals, where he lost to to Aaron Krickstein, who is now ranked 10th in the world.

"Tennis is a game that's really played in the mind," says Stanley. "Everyone has the same strokes and plays the same at this level. The person with a little more confidence wins."

Charlie R. Marchese '85, member of the men's varsity baseball team and last year's All-Ivy first team, tells of the time two years ago the field house packed not-very-stretchy stirrup socks in the bags of some players for their trip to Florida.

"I was frustrated," he says. "I hated them for doing that to me." On that trip, after unsuccessful efforts to trade with someone, he had to pitch against the Red Sox wearing the not-very-stretchy socks.

He pitched the game terribly, he says. Did the shrunken foot-wear have anything to do with it? "I'm sure it did," the senior pitcher says.

"It works from a logical point of view," says Branimit Zivkovic, Harvard fencing coach. "An athlete has used a piece of equipment for a long time, and knows what it will do for him." He tells the story of a Harvard fencer who could note the difference made by a layer of paint on the handle of the foil.

"It's nothing supernatural," Zivkovie says.

"I'm not sure that superstition is the right word," says Mack I. Davis, an assistant dean of the College and sports psychologist for the men's swimming team. "For a lot of athletes, it is an association of certain behaviors and symbols with success."

These symbols and behaviors reduce natural anxiety which stem from competition, he adds. "Whatever those idiosyncrasies are, you should leave them alone," he adds.

Davis himself was a "great tea-toast-and-honey man" as a high-school quarter-miler, he says, and rarely competed without eating the meal beforehand.

Does it ever reach the point where the player depends on his superstition?

"If your habits are correct, your game will be most comfortable," Carrabino says. Last year's Ivy Players of the Year was very accustomed to his one-hour nap after the pre game meal. It was his ritual.

On the Cornell Columbia roadtrip of this year, however, he was unable to catch the necessary z's "Because we were on the road. I wasn't able to sleep, and I didn't play well those games."