In the Brittney Spears movie Crossroads, Spears travels with three friends across the country in search of her long-lost mother. When the quartet runs out of funds, they cleverly enter a karaoke contest to make some quick cash. Their previously dormant musical talent emerges, and they leave the seedy bar victorious and financially secure.
One could argue that without a high-quality contest entry, Spears and her cronies would not have stood a chance against their competition. So what song did they perform?
The Joan Jett classic “I Love Rock and Roll.”
Each time senior softball captain Meghan Doe steps up to the plate during a game at Alumni Field, the crowd hears Spears’ voice over the speakers as she asks, “Is this thing on?” before the singer proceeds with her rendition of the song.
Doe feels that hearing that song prior to each at-bat helps her have just as much, if not more success, than Spears did in that fateful karaoke contest.
“I think hearing that song definitely makes a difference,” Doe said. “It really does pump me up.”
Though this song has proven effective for Doe so far this season, she didn’t play a large role in choosing it.
“(Catcher) Lisa Mack picked it for me,” she said. “I knew I needed a song that sounded good at the beginning, since that’s generally the only part we hear, and she suggested that one.”
One should not mistake this as indifference on Doe’s part. Rather, it is a kindly effort to save fans and teammates from her musical tastes, which she thinks some may find unpleasant.
“I mainly listen to country,” Doe said. “I don’t really like a lot of rap or anything, and I thought that my music might be a little hillbillish.”
Other team members – namely freshman second basemen Tiffany Haas – have had very distinct songs in mind when they were approached by Mack, who according to Doe has taken on the role of “music coordinator.”
“My song is ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor,” Haas said. “It’s a classic, and it has a good beat.”
This particular number has played a large role in Haas’ pre-game ritual.
“If we are on the road, I play it on my laptop,” she said. “It’s part of my routine, and it helps get me fired up. It’s similar to how some players take some dirt from their home field. It’s sort of lucky, I guess.”
A legitimate concern may be that a player might get sick of hearing the same song over and over, game after game. Haas does not feel this will be the case.
“I downloaded the song about three years ago on Kazaa,” she said. “And I’m still not tired of it.”
Doe does not seem to share the freshman’s sentiments.
“I’m not tired of it yet,” she said. “We’ll see how that goes, though. We don’t change the songs at all during the season, although sometimes I think that we should.”
This is the first year that each player has her own personal theme song played, and the general consensus is that this practice is a positive one.
“It’s kind of cool,” Haas said. “During the game, everyone works as a team, but that one moment represents you. It pumps us all up.”