Football Names...something lost along the way

FOOTBALL NAMES

The sport’s changed, some things are for the better, and other times? Well maybe not so much; other times we’ve lost something along the way. I don’t hear nicknames in the same way and I swear that I don’t hear the same lyrical sur names. That, of course, could be a prejudice, but I don’t think saying (or even attempting to spell Osi Umenura or Kahilgibranmohatramudhmuhamed) is ever going to give the same effect as the short, lyrical strong and almost explosive…Huff or Butkus.
Then there was the almost perfect surname Steve Stonebreaker, a lineman who played for Baltimore at about the same time that Big Daddy Limpscomb dominated and almost terrorized the league and was the only man I ever saw who could club a big fullback down with a long extended arm tackle. Big Daddy….ohhh man, you don’t mess with Big Daddy.
My favorite all time nickname was Haystack Calhoun, who wasn’t a football player but should have been and, moreover, should have played nose guard in a 3-4.
Some of the nicknames were easy and didn’t do too much, Billy White Shoes Johnson, Dick Night Train Lane, Wahoo McDaniels and Crazy Legs Hirsch comes to mind. Some were darn near brilliant and, like a fine line of poetry, a simple word could evoke whole images and stories. Bullet Bob Hayes is not only alliterative but you can see the track speed that he brought to the game and used to forever change it (reasons, btw, that he should be in the HOF, he was not only great, he was “changing”).
Bambi for Lance Alworth and I can see the graceful strides eating up distance on the field and eating up the distance in my mind of some forty years gone. Ted The Stork Hendrick recalls 6-5, the skinny long legs and awkward but effective stride. Ahh Broadway Joe, huddled in his fur coat and Neon Deon still wears garish, while the Bus Bettis is pushing mere pedestrians out of his way and Mean Joe Green and Too Tall Jones ares reaching out for Roger the Dodger and coming up with air partially because Golden Boy Horning was good at pick- ups (blocking and otherwise, that is).
It must have been by association and usage but I swear the proper names were special too. Maybe Tinkers to Evers to Chance wasn’t poetry – except by usage, and maybe that’s enough. The Giant team of the fifties had Mel The Roadrunner Tripplet for a nickname, but the front four was special: Grier, Katcavage, Robustelli and Modzelewski . Of course, that worked for those of us who were there, but try saying it in any combination you want, it only works starting with the shortest name first and any other reading that doesn’t put Grier up first simply doesn’t provide the rhythm and the explosions of sound. And that confirms that it’s poetry. Grier, Katcavage, Robustelli and Modoleski….works. Of course, another advantage of the old game was the absence of so many injuries and free agency. That greatest of Giant teams played together for more than a decade and during that time Grier, Katcavage, Robustelli and Modzelewski remained intact, we had lots of time to tongue train ourselves and playing in front of Huff worked lyrically too.
But that team lost to The Eagles who had Clarence Peaks at Full back. Maybe Grier, Katcavage, Robestelli and Modzelewski could lose to a Clarence at hair braiding or tiddlywinks, but how that could happen in football or rugby or one of the manly sports boggles the mind?. Of course Clarence had Don The Blade Burrows and Chuck “Concrete” Bednarik on his side, even if the Polish Rifle and The Minister of Defense wouldn’t get there for another decade.
Try some of the names of the great Chicago Bears… Halas, slingin Sammy Baugh, Butkus, Grange, and Bronco Nagursky. If you never saw Butkus, if you never saw Nagursky, in fact, if you never saw a game of football, well you didn’t’ need to, the names and a little imagination can give it to you.
”BUTKUS”, the name itself is squat, tough, and clogging up the middle, and Bronco Na gur’sky is tough and running up the middle looking for people to run over until Butkus gets in the way and then it’s unstoppable against immovable and maybe anti matter meets matter and the universe explodes…., it’s all right there,”Nagursky smashes Butkus“ hell that‘s better than nicknames, that’s beautiful.