It’s the fall of 2012 and you’re on your couch after a long day of work. It’s not a Thursday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, so, no football. You turn on Comedy Central and are greeted by — football?
Players are introducing themselves before something called the East-West Bowl. Starting at tight end is — wait, no, that’s not Rob Gronkowski or Tony Gonzalez, that’s Hingle McCringleBerry. The starting quarterback is a guy named Davoin Shower-Handel. Did the West’s defensive tackle just say he played college football at Nevada State… Penitentiary?
It turns out that this is all part of some “Key & Peele” skit. Thank goodness that tomfoolery is over with, I couldn’t imagine a reality like th—
It’s the fall of 2024 and you’re on the couch for College Football Saturday. The noon game is the University of Louisiana-Monroe versus Duke University — what a bore. What’s that, the game is #1 trending on X? Who could possibly care about such a lackluster matchup? Shaking your head to no one in particular, you return your sights to the television. To your horror, a graphic slides onto the screen: “Players to watch: General Booty, QB, UL Monroe; Memorable Factor, LB, Duke.” You go back onto X: General Booty is all anyone is talking about.
You frantically flip to a different channel — “any other game, please,” you mutter, shakily, to yourself.
“Ah, Rice University is playing — my dad went there!” Your smile fades as their leading rusher is highlighted by the analyst. His name? Moh Bility.
With each click of the remote, you’re greeted by a new name: Dude Person, CB, Central Arkansas University; King Large, OL, Southern Methodist University; Rowdy Beers, TE, Florida International University.
We are living in a dystopia. What happened to naming QBs Tom or Patrick? Whose ancestors bore the surname Booty? More importantly, why?
It is certainly ponderous why so many college athletes have comically bizarre names written across their backs. Of course, people with odd names have long predated the advent of, say, football. However, undoubtedly, college rosters are becoming increasingly zany in nomenclature.
Forget Booty; who names their son General? Well, let’s think about it.
What are the odds that a kid named General would go on to play quarterback, a position likened to that of a general more than any other in sport? I’d contend that it’s more likely than you think. Perhaps families with a history of great athleticism are assuming that they will birth an athletically gifted child. After all, much of that equation has to do with genetics.
If your father played in the NFL and your mother in the WNBA, odds are that you are naturally athletically gifted. Thus, when your parents decide to name you Decoldest Crawford (yes, this is a real person, and yes, he is a wide receiver), they are making an educated guess rather than a stupid decision. Do the math: if I was “cold” as an athlete, as was my spouse, then my child could well be, oh, I don’t know, Decoldest.
Parents play more than a genetic role in influencing their children, though. If a parent played a sport collegiately or professionally, they are more likely to encourage their children to do the same. Thus, parents may name their child something sports-related because they have machinations on raising a star athlete.
Another theory is that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. If I was named Hurdle McJukestick, I find it plausible that I would have dedicated my life to becoming an NFL running back, not a sports journalist. If your father dubs you Moh Bility, it is my opinion that you then have some sort of familial obligation to be mobile. King Large? You better do everything in your power to be a left tackle when you grow up.
“My mom came up with my name,” Decoldest Crawford divulged to Jordan James of 247Sports. “She named me this because she knew I would be the best athlete out of everyone in the family.” Who knows why his mother had such a notion, but Decoldest indubitably was motivated by his name to become “the coldest.”
Duke’s defensive anchor must have felt immense pressure to live up to his name — how could Memorable Factor grow up to be an unmemorable nonfactor? To some degree, Factor has no choice but sports superstardom — no one is hiring an HVAC guy named Memorable Factor to install insulation in their basement.
I have a strong conviction that players’ parents know exactly what they’re doing when they name their child something wacky. Unquestionably, we see a disproportionate amount of weird names in the realm of athletics because parents — based on genetics, athletic history and aspirations for their offspring — envisioned their unborn children as the next generation of sports heroes.
When you turn on college football this Saturday and see the likes of Booty and Bility, remember that this isn’t some dystopian distortion of reality. These players were given their names by real people who thought long and hard before making one of the most consequential decisions of their families’ lives. These names aren’t the product of a drunken night, a dare or an episode of “Key & Peele”; the goofy name epidemic of modern athletics is tactical, deliberate and, in the weirdest of ways, utterly beautiful.
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