WASHINGTON — It didn’t take Heather Pate long to figure out why her beloved Auburn University football team had begun losing.
It was the pink toothbrush someone gave her during a hospital stay.
Pate, a lifelong Auburn fan, long refused anything with even a hint of red, the color of archrival Alabama.
That puts her among the one in five sports fans who say they do things to bring good luck to their favorite team or avoid jinxing them, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.
The survey showed no real difference by gender, race or education in whether people try finding a way to help their team win. But those who do tend to be younger and make more money. They also are more likely to be single.
Twenty-four percent of college basketball fans admitted to trying something lucky to help their team, and 20 percent of professional basketball followers said the same thing. Fans of professional baseball, and of college and professional football, fell in between.
Other fans who answered the poll had their own techniques.
Todd Williams, 33, of Lexington, Ky., likes to watch University of Kentucky games clad in Kentucky blue-and-white apparel – and clutching his lucky basketball.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 16-18 and involved telephone interviews with 1,013 adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
