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ESPN Senior Writer- Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men's and women's basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He's a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at jake.trotter@espn.com and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The revelation that Texas' Hannah Wells eats ladybugs for good luck spurred all sorts of questions at the Women's College World Series earlier this week.
While the Longhorns played Tennessee on Monday, ESPN's Holly Rowe reported that sources in the Texas dugout had informed her that Wells, a freshman utility player, eats ladybugs for good luck.
Before boarding the departing bus outside Devon Field following the Longhorns' second win -- which sent Texas to the championship series -- Wells confirmed that report herself.
Wells said eating ladybugs "is a tradition" that dates back to when she was a kid growing up in Coahoma, Texas."
"Then everyone on my high school team did it," she said.
It's certainly difficult to knock the superstition's potency at that level. Wells' Coahoma Bulldogettes squad won three consecutive Texas 3A state championships in her final three high school seasons.
But Wells has kept that tradition going at this Women's College World Series as well -- and so far, eating ladybugs appears to be working well for her and the Longhorns.
She collected four hits Monday as the defending national champions beat the Vols twice to advance to the championship series against Texas Tech, including a two-run single off the wall in the fifth inning of the day's first game to expand her squad's lead.
Of course, while the superstition's success is difficult to dispute, questions about the tradition itself still abound: What nutritional value, if any, might they have? Had Wells perhaps tapped an overlooked potential natural protein source? Are there potential health risks associated with eating ladybugs?
To find answers, ESPN reached out to an entomologist for help in answering some (perhaps obvious) queries on the practice of eating ladybugs.
"They are very small, typically less than 30 mg -- a pinch of table salt weighs more than a ladybird beetle," Alicia Bray, an entomologist and professor of biology at Central Connecticut State University, told ESPN in an email. "There is just not enough mass to make them worth the effort nutritionally. Combine the very small size with the bitter taste, there is little known nutritional value."
Bray added that one ladybug equates to "probably less than one tenth of a calorie," but cleared the habit of any likely negative effects besides a less than savory taste -- noting that most animals in fact traditionally don't eat ladybugs due to poor flavor.
"They do have defensive compounds in their 'blood' that gives a bitter or foul taste, so most animals avoid eating them," she said.
Whatever the possible nutritional or superstitious benefit, good luck ladybug consumption is getting the job done for Wells -- who also wears No. 13. But that's not only for luck. Wells said her aunt wore 13 when she played.