Rookie

A rookie is a person in the first year of activity in a sport, or someone new to a profession, training, or activity such as a rookie police officer, rookie pilot, or a recruit.

For other uses, see Rookie (disambiguation).

Throughout sports

In some sports there are traditions in which rookies must do things, or tricks are played on them. Examples in baseball include players having to dress up in very strange costumes, or getting hit in the face with a cream pie; a traditional rookie's "hazing" procedure in American football involves taping players to a goalpost and dousing them with ice water, Gatorade, and other substances.[1][2]

In Major League Baseball, the MLB has cracked down on hazing by enacting an Anti-Hazing and Anti-Bullying Policy which prohibits players from dressing up as the opposite sex, or wearing offensive costumes based on race, sex, nationality, age, sexual orientation, and gender identify.[3]

American football

In the National Football League a rookie is any player who is in their first season in the NFL, having never signed a contract with an NFL team before.[4] The NFL awards the best rookie with the Associated Press NFL Rookie of the Year Award, as voted upon the Associated Press. In the NFL, rookies have special contract rules which limit how much a team can pay them as well as limiting the length of the contract, as per stipulations laid out in the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement.[5][6]

Auto racing
Cole Whitt's car with yellow rookie stripes

NASCAR and INDYCAR rookies are denoted by a yellow stripe on sections of the car as prescribed in the respective rule books. In NASCAR, the rookie stripe is located on the tail panel of the race car.[7]

Media related to Rookie stripes at Wikimedia Commons

NASCAR

The following rules are for rookie status in a national series:

  • Must have run no more than five (prior to 2001 in Cup and Xfinity, and in the Truck Series for age-eligible drivers), seven (2001–10, Cup and Xfinity), and have been declared to race for driver points in that series (2011–present), races in any previous season.
    • In the Camping World Truck Series, a driver that is 17 at the start of the season and does not make ten starts overall is eligible in his first full season after turning 18. Truck Series drivers who are 16 and 17 may only participate in nine races during the season based on circuits.
  • Drivers who compete in more than five races in a higher NASCAR-sanctioned series are not eligible for the award in a lower series if they have not declared for the higher series.
  • If a driver does not start eight races before the end of Race 20 on the schedule, they will immediately become ineligible to earn rookie points for the rest of that season and starting in 2011, remained declared for that series. Drivers may change series declaration in order to avoid this.
  • A driver may not receive rookie points if they start a race for a team that they did not qualify with. However, they are still eligible for championship points in that race.

INDYCAR

The following rules are for rookie status in the NTT IndyCar Series:

  • Must not have participated in more than three NTT IndyCar Series races in a season.
  • A veteran driver in the Indianapolis 500 may still be a Series Rookie if he has not competed in more than three series races overall.
  • A driver who has never raced in the Indianapolis 500 but has made a legal season of NTT IndyCar Series races is still an Indianapolis 500 rookie in his first start.

Baseball

To qualify as a rookie in Major League Baseball, a player must not have exceeded 130 at bats or fifty innings pitched in the majors, and also fewer than 45 days on the active rosters of major league clubs (excluding time on the disabled list or any time after rosters are expanded on September 1) in their previous seasons.[8] Major League Baseball awards the best rookie with the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award, as voted upon by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Basketball

In the National Basketball Association, a rookie is any player who has never played a game in the NBA until that year and the past 5 years. The NBA awards the best rookie with the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, as voted upon by a selected panel of United States and Canadian sportswriters and broadcasters. In the NBA, rookies have special contract rules which limit how much a team can pay them as well as limiting the length of the contract.[9]

Ice hockey

To qualify as a rookie in the National Hockey League, a player must not have played 25 regular season games or more in any single season. As of the 1990-91 NHL season, a player also must be 26 years old or younger to qualify as a rookie.[10][11] The National Hockey League awards the best rookie with the Calder Memorial Trophy, as voted upon by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. In the NHL, rookies have special contract rules which limit how much a team can pay them as well as limiting the length of the contract. An NHL rookie contract is called an Entry Level contract and is typically limited to three years.[12]

Soccer

In Major League Soccer, a rookie is a player who has had no prior professional experience.[13][14] MLS awards the best rookie with the MLS Rookie of the Year Award.

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origins are uncertain, but that perhaps it is a corruption of the word recruit. The earliest example in the OED is from Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads (published 1892): "So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore", referring to rookies in the sense of raw recruits to the British Army.[15] At least during the beginning of the 20th century, in the British Army the term "rookie" was typically used in place of "recruit" as exemplified in Trenching at Gallipoli by John Gallishaw (New York Century Co.: 1916) and in The Amateur Army by Patrick MacGill (London, Herbert Jenkins: 1915). Perhaps the expression is derived from "rook", whereby a "rookie" would be someone who is cheated or defrauded.

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See also
  • Rookie of the Year (award) – an award given to an athlete following the first year of full competition, for more impressive performance and/or better results than all other rookies that season.
  • Freshman
  • Novice

References
  1. Martinez, Jose (August 8, 2013). "The Most Humiliating NFL Rookie Hazings". complex.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  2. Birdsong, Nick (August 12, 2015). "Ronald Darby taped to goal post, doused with water in Bills' rookie hazing ritual". sportingnews.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  3. Justice, Richard (December 13, 2016). "Anti-hazing, anti-bullying policy appropriate". mlb.com. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  4. "NFL–NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement 2020" (PDF). NFLPA. March 5, 2020. p. 3. Retrieved May 23, 2020. Rookie" means a person who has never before signed a Player Contract with an NFL Club. The first Player Contract signed by such person is a "Rookie Contract.
  5. Davis, Nate (July 25, 2011). "NFL, players announce new 10-year labor agreement". content.usatoday.com. USAToday. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  6. Lariviere, David (July 4, 2012). "NFL Rookie Contracts Show Owners Were The Winners In CBA". forbes.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  7. "2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year". Jayski's Silly Season Site. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
  8. "MLB Miscellany: Rules, regulations and statistics". Major League Baseball. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
  9. Jessop, Alicia (June 28, 2012). "The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts". Forbes.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  10. "NHL Calder Memorial Trophy Winners". NHL.com. June 21, 2017. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  11. "Hockey Operations Guidelines". NHL.com. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
  12. "Collective Bargaining Agreement FAQs". NHL.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  13. "Finalists revealed for 2017 MLS year-end awards". mlssoccer.com. October 31, 2017. Retrieved January 20, 2018. For this award, “rookie” is defined as a player without previous professional experience who made his MLS debut in 2017
  14. Mahoney, Ridge (October 18, 2017). "MLS Awards: Gressel holds sway in Rookie of the Year race". socceramerica.com. Retrieved January 20, 2018. Many of the top young players new to the league, such as Jefferson Savarino of Real Salt Lake, are not eligible due to professional experience prior to their arrival in MLS.
  15. John Simpson and Edmund Weiner (editors): Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, Clarendon Press, 1989, ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
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