Athlete nicknames sure are lame these days

Why is it that throwing the first initial of an athlete's first name together with the the first three letters of his last name (with some variations) passes for a a cool nickname these days?

A-Rod, J-Roll, C-Webb, T-Mac, D-Wade are just a few. K-Rod at least plays on his ability to get strikeouts, but it still is lame. Man-Ram? I guess that passes for real progress.

Have people lost their creativity or do I just need to lower my standards of what is a cool sounding nickname?

Signed,
O-Dea

 

Am typing in bios for our back/lineman of the year awards.
I do not want to know how Jermaine Williams got the nickname "Juicy."

 

Last kid I wrote about who had a great nickname was former U of Cincinnati football player Trent Cole, now of the Eagles. "Scrap Iron" was a decent moniker.

 

Where have the nicknames come from in the past?

Who coined The Yankee Clipper or The Splendid Splinter?

What about The Whopper, Iceman or The Fridge?

 

You might have to blame our industry. Aren't sportswriters credited with coming up with some of those old nicknames?

 

Mostly, the really great old nicknames came from us -- sportswriters -- in a time when we were more literary, more poetic... when we were pros just more apt to prose.

 

What constitutes a nickname that sticks when it's from a sportswriter?

I called one catcher Wheels because I saw him hit a triple and steal a base in one game.

F-Town

 

I have always loved Frank Thomas' nickname. How would you like to walk up to a beauty and say "Hi, I'm The Big Hurt."

 

josh howard is j-ho. that's just stupid.

 

Ugh ... in hockey, it seems to be epidemic that you take the first syllable of the athlete's last name and add a 'Y' or an 'IE.'

Gone are the days of Boom Boom, Gump, the Rocket, the Pocket Rocket, and the Roadrunner.

 

We were talking about this in the office the other night, that hockey players have no creativity cause all they do is that. It's like calling me sportschicky. . . damned weak.

 

Haha ... when I was invited back into the sports writing industry recently, I gave it careful consideration. Then remembered what it's like to talk to a 17-year-old hockey player talk about everybody being on the same page and giving 110 per cent and figured it would be best to say 'no, thank you.'