NEW YORK. The tongue-in-cheek saying that the NFL's initials stand for "No-Fun League" gained credibility today as the league issued an edict that prohibits players from using names it considers detrimental to its image.
Ocho Cinco, ne Johnson
"We had to regulate end-zone celebrations because they were starting to look like 'Soul Train' re-runs," NFL Assistant General Counsel Ethan Wilenski said at a press conference. "We're trying to reach a high-income demographic, and made-up names like 'Tywoin' [Breaux, OT Lions] and 'Kabeer' [Gbaja-Biamila, DE Packers] just don't cut it.
Kabeer Gbaja-Biam-i-unh-l-a
The league recently dropped its opposition to the name "Ocho Cinco", which was adopted by Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals. "Ocho Cinco" means "8-5" in Spanish, and Johnson is widely credited with being the first wide receiver to run pass routes in a foreign language.
La'Roi Glover
Player reaction was swift. "I refuse to change my name just because some dweeb in marketing can't handle it," said Rams nose tackle La'Roi Glover. When informed of Glover's resistance, league officials cited safety concerns. "Mr. Glover's apostrophe protrudes from his helmet and could disfigure a good-looking quarterback, hurting NFL licensing revenues," Wilenski asserted.
Gene Mruczkowski: Buy a vowel, dude.
The NFL claims its new policy is color blind. "We've already spoken to a number of down linemen of Slavic descent, such as Gene Mruczkowski of the Patriots and Bob Dzvonick of the Steelers," Wilenski said. "We told Mruczkowski it was time to 'buy a vowel' like they do on Wheel of Fortune. Dzvonick's name isn't quite as bad, so we told him he could re-arrange the letters into 'Bob Z. Vicdonk' or something like that."
You make the call: Which is Courtney Van Buren?
League officials pointed to Courtney Van Buren, offensive tackle for the San Diego Chargers, as an African-American player who would be unaffected by the rule, and who would in fact be cited as an example to others who were forced to change their names. "'Courtney Van Buren' sounds like the women's lacrosse coach at a New England prep school," Wilenski noted.
GREEN BAY, Wisconsin. Angered by the Green Bay Packers' refusal to give him his unconditional release, quarterback Brett Favre today announced he would un-retire from two other teams, Hancock North Central High School in Kiln, Mississippi, and Southern Mississippi, where he played college football.
#10, Brett Favre
"I don't care how many teams I have to un-retire from," Favre. "I'm going to be playing football come August 18th," when two-a-day football practices can begin under state interscholastic athletic rules in Mississippi.
Favre started as an 8th grader for the Hancock North Central baseball team, but played only three years of varsity football during which he averaged five passes per game in a wishbone offense. Under Mississippi High School Athletic Association rules, he accordingly has remaining eligibility of either two years or 680 passes, whichever comes first.
Southern Mississippi Golden Eagle: "Brett's back!"
Favre frequently played with a hangover at Southern Mississippi, including a thrilling 1987 come-from-behind victory over sixth-ranked Florida State, and will seek a do-over for any game in which his blood alcohol level exceeded .04. "Brett can play better hungover than a lot of guys can sober," said Favre's agent, James "Bus" Cook. "Carson Palmer's always calling me asking me what he drinks."
CINCINNATI, Ohio. New England Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick, known for his obsessive preparation for games, could be excused if he looked a little bit tired at Paul Brown Stadium here last night following his team's 34-13 dismantling of the Cincinnati Bengals.
"We've had a tough week watching a lot game film, but it paid off in a big way," was all that Belichick would say to a sideline reporter as he walked off the field.
At his post-game news conference a sportswriter asked Belichick, widely regarded as a defensive genius, whether he had found the Bengals' Achilles' heel in stifling their explosive offense. The usually reticent Patriots' coach dropped his guard and admitted that he had detected the flaw in Cincinnati's game.
"We watched hundreds of hours of film, often at slow motion, and discovered that their uniforms are ugly--I mean really ugly," he said, as reporters dutifully transcribed the words that would spark cries of foul from the Bengals' locker room.
"I've finally found a colorist I'm comfortable with."
"I don't know where he gets off saying something inflammatory like that," said Cincinnati's Chad Johnson, a wide receiver known for his pre-and-in game trash-talking who exacerbates the Bengals' loud orange and black color scheme with a tasteful, bleached-blond mohawk. "I try to be respectful of my opponent at all times and keep my thoughts to myself unless I have to point out that his shoe is untied or that his mother looks for love in horse barns."
"Them damn kids said I looked like an NFL coach . . . "
Belichick has himself been criticized for his taste in sideline apparel, as his signature grey "hoodsie" sweatshirt has been likened to a homeless man's winter wardrobe. "I find that really offensive," said Ellen Stritch, executive director of Cincinnati's Evening Outreach Shelter, which provides beds and meals to an average of 120 homeless men each night. "Every day I see men who have been neglected and forgotten by our society, and I rarely encounter one who looks as bad as Belichick."
The Bengals' uniforms have been described as what a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger wears on Halloween, but Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger who hails from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, took issue with that comparison.
"Kids, if anyone offers you one of the grey tabs, don't take it!"
"It's more like what Tony the Tiger would wear if somebody sprinkled LSD on his Frosted Flakes."
FOXBORO, Massachusetts. New England Patriots wide receiver Reche Caldwell was cleared to play in this week's game against the Miami Dolphins after taking a vicious hit to the head last Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Caldwell: "You don't know jack about Bloomsbury, man!"
"He's fully recovered," said Dr. Harry Wernick who examined Caldwell at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital yesterday. Wernick led a "dream team" of neurologists and other physicians who administered a battery of tests to Caldwell.
Dr. Harry Wernick and his "dream team" colleagues.
"We started out in the traditional way, asking Reche who was president, who's the vice president and so on," said Wernick. "He named the entire Bush cabinet, the current justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the original members of the Shirelles and all of Elvis's number one records. Then he named the principal dancers of the American Ballet Theatre for the past thirty years in inverse order of height starting with Mikhail Baryshnikov."
The Shirelles
Caldwell's remarkable mental feats did not surprise fellow Patriot Rodney Harrison, who is also known for his hard tackling. "Sometimes a hit like that can clear your head," Harrison said. "I came up to him to make sure he was all right and he said 'Harrison, William Henry--Old Tippecanoe--right?' I said no, I'm Rodney--your teammate. He says 'I know--I'm just messin' with ya.'" The ninth President of the United States, William Henry Harrison died after just thirty days in office, but was picked up on waivers by the San Diego Chargers.
President William Henry Harrison
Bengals' safety Kevin Kaesviharn made the hit that brought Caldwell down, but he was the one left shaking his head. "He bet me I couldn't name five members of the Bloomsbury Group. I rattled off Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey pretty quick, then I was stuck. He starts in with Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Dora Carrington, Roger Fry and David Garnett. I had to get back to the huddle but he just kept goin' with Duncan Grant, John Maynard Keynes, Desmond MacCarthy and Leonard Woolf."
Virginia Woolf
The Bloomsbury Group began as an informal social assembly of Cambridge University graduates in the late 19th century who mingled at events held by the Apostles secret society. After the merger of the NFL into the AFL in 1969, the group became known as the Kansas City Chiefs.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
