Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

A few of us were talking over the weekend about athletes and what we call them. This conversation stemmed from a co-worker calling former WNBA Cynthia Cooper just “Cooper.” I laughed at him ( he admitted that he couldn’t remember her first name. I backed off).

But can you name me a female athlete who we call by their last name?

OK, I’ll give you Wecker (Kendra Wecker) and Koehn (Laurie Koehn) and Ohlde (Nicole Ohlde). They’re Kansans who were excellent college basketball players who went onto the WNBA.

But take Cheryl Miller. One of the greatest women’s players of all time. Do you call her Miller? Um, no. She’s Cheryl Miller. How about Jackie Joyner Kersee. Uh-huh. The full name. Florence Griffth-Joyner. The full name — or Flo-Jo. Marion Jones is not Jones. Candace Parker is not Parker. Lisa Leslie is not Leslie. Allyson Felix. Not Felix. Not Allyson.

Let’s take it more local. Girls players _ It’s Joanna McFarland, Lindsey Keller, Jennifer Lane. Boys players _ Jordan Cyphers, Mike Atwater, Dorrian Roberts.

Then there’s the last-namers like Chris Harper (Harper).

How about Arthur and Bryce Brown — they’re usually referred to as Arthur or Bryce or the Browns. Perry Ellis, the incoming Heights freshman, is already being referred to as Perry.

So who did I miss? Let me hear them.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 11:28 a.m. and is filed under The Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.