Friday, November 21, 2008

Is Olek Czyz your real or stage name?

It’s college basketball season! See the best young athletes play for one year until they split for the NBA! Hear Dick Vitale suffer a hernia screaming so loud over some meaningless rebound!

Compliments of LA Times writer Chris Dufresne, here are the best names in this year’s crop of collegiate hoopsters.

Olek Czyz (Duke -- pictured above although I'm sure you recognize him)
Dogus Balbay (Texas)
Idong Ibok (Michigan State)
Tweety Carter (Baylor)
Scoop Jardine (Syracuse)
Derwin Kitchen (Florida State)
Orion Outerbridge (Rhode Island)
Papa Dia (Southern Methodist)
Chop Tang (Wisconsin-Green Bay)
Takayo Siddle (Gardner-Webb)
"Noopy" Crater (Ohio State)
Trian Illiadis (Old Dominion; hometown Gwelp, Australia)

These names will definitely show up in future scripts of mine, unless you get to them first.

18 comments :

  1. Can the human mind even imagine what sort of badass a man who has gone through a whole life with the name Tweety Carter must be?

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  2. This is an excuse to pull out one of my favorite bits of trivia - the Outerbridge Crossing (bridge from Staten Island to New Jersey) was actually named after one Eugenius Outerbridge. I think he was the first head of the Port Authority.

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  3. People often call me "Eugenius." Then they sneer, shake their heads and walk away. It confuses me.

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  4. If Oleg Czyz goes into show bidness, he'll probably want to change his name...

    Oooh, Oooh, I've got it...

    Czyz Palminteri

    Enjoy your weekend.

    Word Verification: Tatina
    (when he has a daughter)

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  5. I hope someone does a similar list of female basketball players. I'm sure there are some splendid names there, too...

    ...although I doubt one of them is my first verification word, "Essesies." Or my second, "Caltil" (a state agency for all those working on that great agricultural soil around Fresno).

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  6. Just checked the web and Tweety is a nickname. His real name is Demond Carter

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  7. Orion Outerbridge
    the Outerbridge Crossing (bridge from Staten Island to New Jersey) was actually named after one Eugenius Outerbridge.

    You're kidding! I was born, raised and lived 43 of my 50 years in Jersey and always thought it got its name because it was an outer bridge. Although, this would explain why the structure is called a crossing. Guess they couldn't call it the Outerbridge Bridge.

    That basketball player must have to explain his names all of the time. "We're not Greek but my parents named me for a hunter who was adored by the Goddess of the Hunt and when I got shot by accident, she made me into a constellation."

    I hope he has Sirius satellite radio to honor Orion's loyal dog.

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  8. Oh no! SAG going out?

    Back to the picket lines.

    I'm baking cookies.

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  9. "Dicky V, baby!" Yeah, that does get old.

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  10. Trian is usually the short form of Triandaphyllos, which is the Greek for rose. But before you start sniggering at flower-boy, remember that he is already bigger than you and it won't be long before he fills out a bit more. Aren't hormones wonderful things.

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  11. What, no one mentioned Chop Tang's sister Poon?

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  12. "Scoop Jardin" - the May-December love child of Beach Boy Al Jardin and actress Rosalind Russell that no one talked about, until NOW!

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  13. don't forget Ashlee Simpson's baby's name, Bronx Mowgli.

    sounds like a college hoopster already.

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  14. I thought Orion Outerbridge was some new adult dental appliance

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  15. G'head, tell me his best friend is something like Alonzo "Puddy Tat" Smith, I dare you.

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  16. Ken, you and everyone else here cracks me up. I love this blog!

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  17. Now we need someone to arrange these names in a song a la "Van Lingle Mungo."

    (verification word Zedgnene. I could swear he was someone in the Nixon administration.)

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  18. While these aren't such.... *original* names as those, here at the University of Colorado, we have quite the collection of superstar athlete names this year. Playing basketball, we have Whitney Houston and Brittany Spears, and playing football, we have Rodney Stewart. We're all waiting for the concert.

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