As graduation approaches, it's time to address one of the oldest and most fundamental questions in sports: Does sex affect performance on game day? Perspectives on the subject range from scientific theory to old wives tales. Some athletes swear against it, others see it as a staple of their pre-game routine. As the immortal English footballer George Best once said, "I certainly never found it had any effect on my performance. Maybe best not the hour before, but the night before makes no odds."
Opinions on the subject date way back to the time of the ancient Romans, when Pliny the Elder, writing in Natural History in 77 A.D., claimed, "Athletes when sluggish are revitalized by love-making, and the voice is restored from being gruff and husky."
Today it all depends on who you are. A 1999 Italian study proved that testosterone levels actually rise in men after sexual activity. By that logic, according to Dr. Emmanuele Jannini, "If a sportsman needs to be more aggressive, it's better to have sex."
So what made Mr. Best draw the line at an hour before? It's been alleged that he was discovered in the midst of the act just an hour before Manchester United's FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United. He then admitted to playing terribly.
Fellow footballer Freddie Ljunberg agrees, claiming that even having sex the night before a match made his legs feel like concrete. Many athletes do indeed believe that it saps aggression and energy, but according to the Brazilian Romario, "Good strikers can only score goals when they have had good sex on the night before a match."
It's hard not to wonder how Dartmouth weighs in. Better to lay low the night before a game with some EBAs and a movie? Or smarter to ask your girlfriend or boyfriend if he or she wants to "hang out?"
Dartmouth soccer seems to possess a liberal attitude toward the subject. Both the men and women I spoke to revealed strong beliefs that sex has zero affect on their performance in a game the next day. They did, however, cite examples of feeling tired when having to train just an hour after sex. One player, when asked his opinion on the subject, claimed to have been "doing that sh*t since high school."
I thought perhaps it varied by sport maybe athletes who prepare for more contact in their games would abstain. I also surmised that it could vary across gender lines. But both the men and women I spoke with dismissed sex affecting athletic performance as more of a myth than a fact. "I don't draw the line anywhere," one female varsity athlete said. "I've dated people who have issues with doing it the night before, but I'll do it whenever. I don't feel different physically at all."
"There's no team policy," a Dartmouth men's lacrosse player said. "But everyone has their own superstition about it. I'm definitely not going out the night before a game. I'm guessing the majority of kids probably wouldn't do it the night before."
When asked point blank if he would have sex the night before a game, the answer became more complicated: "Depends on the girl," he said.
And thus, the controversy rages on a war of attrition between science and superstition. What proved to be interesting was the lack of knowledgable reasoning that supported decisions either way. Many of the men who choose to abstain from sex before a game do so because they believe that they lose testosterone because of it. When told that they would actually have higher levels, they were caught off-guard.
"I guess it's probably just a psychological thing," one male athlete said. "Because there's definitely times I've felt a little tight, a little out of it."
The ironic reality is that sexual activity doesn't affect athletes the way they think it does. Former Nigerian national soccer coach Clemens Westerhof even conceded that, "It's not the sex which tires out young players, it's the staying up all night looking for it."
There's a reason Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor was infamous for sending call girls to his opponents' hotel rooms the nights before games. Maybe LT knew it all along it's not really the testosterone they're losing, it's the sleep.
So if you've got the resources at your disposal, feel free to enjoy all the coitus you like before game day. Just make sure you're in bed by 10 p.m.
