SPECIAL SPORTS ARTICLES
Nobody Asked Me But ....
by Wilbur Wilke
Nobody Asked Me But ...
by Wilbur Wilke
March 24, 2005
THE NAME OF THE GAME
What is it about the NBA having players with contrived, obviously invented, non-American sounding first names. It wasn't long ago when black basketball players were called Michael, Charles, Karl, Clyde, Willis, Isaiah, and Patrick. Now one needs a road map, a dictionary, and a thesaurus to prounce them. Take a look at some of the given names on the official rosters of current NBA teams.
Zydrunas, Aleksander, Pavel, Tariq, Vitaly, Udonis, Rashard, Malik, Devin, Marquis, Shandon, Hedo, Mateen, Caron, Jameer, Jared, Kobe, Deshawn, Tyson, Lebron, Darius, Orthella, Raja, Peja, Luol, Stephon, Cordiss, Jannero, Slava, Cuttino, Shaquille, Jamal Ndudi, Memhet, Latrell, Sasha, Desagna Peia, Zarko, Callbert, Adonal, Andris, Jermaine, Tierre, Devainm, Rarual, Shandon, Wang, Qyntel, Anfernee, Dorell, Shareef, Lusious, Jalen, Rafer, Donvell, Lamond, Nenad, Zoran, Jaban, Donnell, Kaniel, Tremaine, Britton, Ha, Nazr, Beno, Rasho, Dien, Linton, Rasheed, Darke, Amare, Leandro. Smush, Yuta, Pau, Stromile, Bonzi, Lorenzen, Dahntay, Jovan, Zendon, Emeka, Primoz, Brevin, Kareem, Tamar, Theron, Jahidi, Tyronn, predrag, Obinna, Domta, Jelani, Zeljko, Mikki, Darrick, Manaday. Moochie, Darmar, and Frandisco.
Most of these names do not belong to foreign born players. Some are, but most are American born, good, old USA athletes. I've been assured that most of the names are not biblical in nature, nor do they have African heritage roots. They are contrived names created at random from the spilling of alphabet soup on the table. Is there a movement going on in black America to create a new, self-serving name indentification. And if so where does it end? The further apart the races grow, the more polarizied we become as a nation, and that's not good for anyyone.
But more interestingly. the curious question, the confusing thought that runs around in my mind, is why are these names indigenous to the NBA only?
Except for the Latino players in baseball, the rest, including the the black players, have regular, easy to recognize, clearly defineable, tradional, American sounding names like Frank, Gary, Barry, Fred, Tony, Andrew, Derek, Hank, Willie, Jason, Mark, Reggie,, Bob, etc. In the NFL there are a sprinkling of foreign sounding, Muslim related names, too few to mention. So it seems that not having a common American name is a prerequisite for membership into the NBA. Why is that do you think?
When their parents named their sons Jabal, or Shaquille, or Anfernee, or LeBron, did they know that they would grow up to be basketball players and not baseball or football or tennis or hockey players or golf pros? Or was it by giving their sons non-traditional names it automatically qualified them for NBA status, and disqualified them from any other sport?
Suppose Barry Bonds had been named Tremaine Bonds instead. Suppose Reggie Jackson had been called Latrell Jackson, or Hank Aaron had been named Orthella Aaron. Would they have been banned from playing baseball by the person in charge of such athletic things? I find the situation to be an enigma: totally unexplainable, and socially mysterious.
Wilbur Wilke's Daily Sports Blog
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