Piggybacking on Will Herberich's column in Monday's paper, we at the Daily Sports Department got to thinking about athletes' names. What's in a name, really? Was talent pre-programmed into the Mapp brothers-Majestic, who had a healthy hoops career with the Virginia Cavaliers, and his slightly less-talented but equally well-monikered brother, Scientific? Was Swin Cash just playing out some predetermined plan when her Detroit Shock won the WNBA Championship in 2006?
So we took a look around the Jumbo rosters, and came up with our top 10 favorite Tufts titles...
10. Fahd Abdus-Sabur (men's crew): As one of the more politically correct editors pointed out, just having a foreign-sounding name doesn't make it cool. While that is true, this one's pretty cool.
9. Clem McNally (men's lacrosse): If it wasn't for the fact that this name immediately evokes the image of stalwart Red Sox starter Matt Clement, we would have put McNally higher on the list.
8. Brogie Helgeson (volleyball): This freshman's bringing a big name to the court. We'll see if she's got the skills to back it up.
7. Quinn Kelley (ice hockey): You can almost hear it over the loudspeaker. Do we even have a loudspeaker?
6. A four-way tie between Marilyn Duffy-Cabana (field hockey, women's basketball), Lyndsey Gibbons-Neff (sailing), Taryn Miller-Stevens (women's basketball) and Chloe Young-Hyman. What can we say? We love the hyphen.
5. J.B. Bruno (football): Come on! This guy was born to play football!
4. LeQuan Hunter (men's track): As a 200-meter and 400-meter sprinter, this guy's in the chase. The fact that this guy has the nickname of "Q" just adds to our appreciation of this name.
3. A few for kicks; the irony should be obvious: Ryan Crisco (football-don't drop it!) Brian Love (men's tennis), and Janyll Canals (women's swimming)
2. The team title goes to the women of Tufts volleyball. With Helgeson, Filocco, Ripecky, Viola, and Wysham, these Jumbos are an announcer's dream. The men's basketball team is a close second (Dacson Sears, Az Adhanom, and Carl Onubogu), but Black, Shepherd, Martin and Sullivan brought down the average.
1. Bear Duker (men's soccer): We first came across Bear when he assisted the first goal of the Jumbos' season and immediately did a double-take. It's pretty much too good to be true.
Was it destiny? Swin finally Cash-es in on her badass last name. Is the same fate in store for Bear Duker and Marilyn Duffy-Cabana?
by Liz Hoffman and Alex Bloom
