The Decline of the Great American Sports Nickname

Having spent my sports-loving youth in what some would call the golden age of sports nicknames (the 1990s); I grew up not only learning players’ names but also thoroughly enjoying their ever important, often necessary and sometimes hilarious nicknames.   So let the record show that I come to you with a great appreciation and understanding of nicknames in sports.

The 90s were a glorious time when you could witness Thunder Dan Marjle toss up a trey, or see Grandmama throw down a slam dunk in his/her fresh converses.  Pavel “The Russian Rocket” Bure would sneak one through the 5-hole of Dominik “The Dominator” Hasek, while Neon Deion “Prime Time” Sanders was high-stepping into the end zone.  You could see The Kid, Junior Griffey, rob a dinger away from The Big Hurt, or stand in awe of the home run race between Slammin’ Sammy and Big Mac.

But now-a-days this is no longer the case; nicknames in sports have gone the way of the English language, we’ve gotten lazy and downright uncreative.  Now you have to see K-Rod strike out A-Rod and I-Rod (the player formerly nicknamed Pudge), or you can watch as T-Mac loses in the playoffs to five different guys nicknamed Superman.  The current nicknames are just so unimaginative; you don’t see anything like the brilliant two for one nickname of Sir Charles “The Round Mound of Rebound” Barkley, but you get to hear plenty of ‘first-letter-in-first-name-first-three-letters-in-last-name’ nicknames or the name of some superhero.

The number of creative nicknames has gone down exponentially over the past decade and out of the few clever nicknames in sports 75% of them are for Shaq.  One of the most popular names in basketball is Superman; the best known owners of this title are Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard and Paul Pierce.  From now on this nickname will be giving solely to Dwight Howard because he doesn’t have any other nickname and he actually looks like a comic book superhero. With that being said Shaq gets to keep Man of Steel and Paul Pierce can still be called Superman, but only by KG.  Shaq doesn’t need Superman because he is also known as Shaq Fu, The Big Twitterer , Manny Shaq-iaou, The Big Deporter, Wilt Chamberneazy, The Big eQuotatious, The Big Maravich, M.D.E (Most Dominant Ever), The Big Baryshnikov, The Big Agave, The Big Galactus, The Real Deal, Witness Protection, Diesel, Shaq Daddy, The Big Felon, The Big Field General, Shaqovic, The Big IPO, Shaq-tus, L.C.L .(Last Center Left), Dr. Shaq, Osama Bin Shaq, The Big Banana, and my personal favorite, The Big Aristotle, just to name 25.  Paul Pierce doesn’t need to be Superman because he is ‘The Truth’ which was a nickname coined by who else but Shaq Diesel.

Now that the Superman debate is dealt with, I submit that no future players are named after superheroes* and there definitely should be no more A-Rod-esque nicknames in the future, at all. With this being said, it is my hope that one day we will all be a little more like Shaquille “The Big Nickname” O’Neal and have nicknames for players that are inspired and imaginative.  So I say to you, all the players, commentators and fans of the world go forth, throw on those creative caps and start nicknaming. Let’s bring back the glory days, there is hope for us yet.

*Manu Ginobili can be called Batman because he swatted a bat out of the air.