Top Ten Tuesday- Best Names in Sports

Yet another contributing writer makes his debut on the site today. Andrew Meola has been dubbed our resident list-guy. Hopefully he'll be delivering us a new top-ten list each Tuesday. 

As a (hopefully) frequent contributor to Walk In Radio, I figure it would be appropriate to tell you all a bit about myself. My name is Andrew Meola, and I graduated from Syracuse University in May 2010. Eric and Jeff are two of my best friends. We forged an unbreakable bond of friendship in the harsh Syracuse winters, which last from September to May.

Sports consume 90 percent of my life, so you’ll undoubtedly see a heavy dose of sports-themed posts from me. I enjoy a delicious meal more than most anything else and often find myself wondering if my clothes match.

I have a tendency to stay loyal to television shows long after they have passed their prime and can spend hours with an Xbox and an HDTV. My mood fluctuates wildly depending on how the Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers and Orange performed the previous night.

And I make a fantastic tomato sauce and meatballs, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, onto the first installment of Top Ten Tuesdays. As you may have heard on Jeff and Eric’s first podcast, we kicked around the idea of “Coolest Names in Sports.” I decided to tweak it a bit because I wanted to include names that might not necessarily be cool in and of themselves but have some other intangible quality to them.

So, without further ado, I present the Top Ten Best Names in Sports:

10) Skip Schumaker: Skip Schumaker was born in 1980 in Torrance, California. His name sounds like he should have been born in 1890 in Sturgeon, Missouri. Can’t you just picture some old-timey baseball announcer calling the 1922 World Series over the static airwaves? “Tippy McGee leads off of second, Schumaker at the plate. Here’s the 3-2 pitch from Johnson, and Schumaker drives it into deep right center. Home run! And the Red Stockings have defeated the Senators!”

9) D’Brickashaw Ferguson: Ferguson is a beastly offensive lineman for the New York Jets. And his name is great enough on its own. But when you consider the fact that he was named after a main character in The Thorn Birds, a novel and subsequent television miniseries in the late 70s and early 80s. Oh, the character after whom he’s named is a priest who impregnates a woman but still somehow becomes a high ranking church official. So, yeah…

8) Captain Munnerlyn: People have to call him Captain. They have no choice. Need I say more?

7) God’s Gift Achiuwa: If he gave this to himself as a nickname, I would say he’s arrogant and kind of a tool because he would have broken the cardinal rule. But the fact that this is his real name is amazing because every announcer has no choice but to say it. And if he turns out to be a stud power forward at St. John’s, then it’s a double blessing.

6) World B. Free: On December 8, 1981, Lloyd Bernard Free legally changed his first name to World. Personally, I think this is a beautiful expression of unity, and I commend Free for committing to his beliefs so strongly that he actually changed his name. Plus, think about the advantage on the court. How can you possibly get in the way of a guy who just wants us all to get along? Blocking his shot would be like punching a kitten.

5) Metta World Peace: Few can forget the Malice at the Palace in 2004. Ron Artest was one of the central figures in that brawl and is known for his tenacious defense and aggressive attitude. But a lot has changed since then. In April, Artest received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. In September, he legally changed his name to Metta World Peace. Talk about a 180.

4) Barkevious Mingo: Mingo plays defensive end for the LSU Tigers. But he has a spot on this list simply because in a 2009 Name of The Year contest, he beat out such heavyweights as Iris Macadangdang, Nutritious Love, Infinite McCloud, Muffin Lord, Calamity McEntire, Muffin Lord, Juvyline Cubangbang, Rev. Valentine Handwerker and Taco Vandervelde. He truly is a head and shoulders above the rest.

3) T-Bob Hebert: The son of former New Orleans Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert and another proud member of the LSU football team, T-Bob makes the list not only because he sounds like a rejected robot from the Terminator franchise, but because his last name is actually pronounced “Ay-Bear.” So he sounds like he’s from both the Deep South and Paris at the same time. Now that’s an accomplishment.

2) Horatio Benedict Blades: Where do I start with this one? Horatio evokes both a classic Shakespearean character and a redheaded police officer whipping off his glasses during perpetual sunset. Benedict calls to mind a fighter from the Revolutionary War. And Blades…well, just sounds awesome. This guy sounds like he could knock your teeth out and recite an epic poem at the same time. How he is a free agent in the NFL is beyond me.

1) Grlenntys Chief Kickingstallionsims Jr.: Ho. Ly. Moly. This 7-foot-1 center played for the Alabama State Hornets and has the honor of the most awesome name EVER. If you drop the “Grlenntys” and “Jr.” and call him by his more common, shortened name of Chief Kickingstallionsims, his name is still 128% more amazing than any of the 7 billion other people on earth. I salute you, Chief. I salute you so much.

-Andrew Meola

Comments

[Cory]

I feel like this list of names saved me hundreds of hours of watching sports, taking notes of good names

And jesus hates the yankees