"I'm pregnant". Oops!
They say communication is pretty important in a relationship. Guess my wife and I had a little bit of a communication breakdown. I heard my wife say that the doctor said that "pregnancy was impossible", which led to us adopting Jaylen--a future star quarterback, by the way. The more I think about it, the more I think that I heard my wife wrong.
51% chance of a boy.
Tabitha says that she'll let me pick four names and that she'll make the final decision. Sounds fair to me. Teamwork. How will I decide what names to give her? Then it hits me. What is my favorite holiday of the year? March Madness. Brackets. Office pools. I'll make a 64-name bracket and whittle them down to a Final Four for my lovely wife. She thinks it sounds fun. The mother-in-law sings a different tune but you'll have that. She's probably the type that picks University of Louisiana-Lafayette because they are the Rajun Cajuns or Oregon State University because Obama's brother-in-law coaches them or the Maine Black Bears because she has relatives that live up in the land of Stephen King.
What if it's a girl? That's a stupid question. The doctor said it was a boy...at least, that is what I heard.
What if it's a girl? I am not even going to worry about that possibility. Any name is fine with me but it's impossible...at least, that is what I heard.
What if it's a girl? Call her whatever. Just not Sparkles, Barbie or Ruby, the stage name of one of my former players. Besides, it can't be a girl. The doctor said so, at least that is what I heard.
Above all else, I want a name that is a strong sports name or just plain memorable without setting my son up to get beat up. A paladrome would be nice. I went to college with a girl named Remle Anna Elmer. The same both ways forward and backward. I always thought that was one of the best names ever.
It's bracket time, BABY! Where is Dick Vitale when you need him to emphasize a pun.
The seeding:
#1--Bo'Shem (not so that he can be a great amish quilt maker, but because my last name is Bechler)
#1--Tebow (there are two types of people in this world, winners and those who don't like watching Tebow)
#1--Peerless (he'll be so good at sports, he'll have no peers...except my other son, Jaylen)
#1--Champ (a name says it all)
#2--Robinson (Shoelaces might be the best running quarterback ever)
#2--Brady (Tom not only wins Super Bowls and has a supermodel wife but went to Michigan)
#2--Landry (The Dallas Cowboy legendary coaching silhouette was my first sports hero)
#2--Bryson (I know that my wife likes this name already without even knowing that it belongs to the hottest hitting sensation in baseball)
#3--Ty (Law is good, especially when he played in Michigan's secondary)
#3--Derek (Jeter is a Kalamazoo, Michigan native that has done a thing or two in his career)
#3--Carson (once again, knowing that my wife likes this name makes the former Heisman Trophy winner's name that much more attractive)
#3--Price (wife once babysat Mark Price's kids and I wrote him in for president in my first ever voting in 1992)
#4--Ryan (Nolan was my favorite athlete growing up...even before he took Robin Ventura out to the woodshed when he charged the mound)
#4--Lance (Armstrong is one of the greatest athletes and toughest competitors of all-time, plus one of my best friends in college was Lance Geren and he and I would talk sports for hours)
#4--Woodson (the former Michigan Heisman Trophy winner continues to go strong for the Packers)
#4--Larkin (Barry, the former Michigan shortstop did a thing or two on his way to a Hall of Fame career)
#5's--Loy (Vaught); Nolan (Ryan); Jeter (Derek); Dunn (Bill Dunn, my HS coach)
#6's--Mookie (Blaylock); Rison (Andre); Whitaker (Lou); Tram (Alan Trammell)
#7's--Javon (Kearse); Jamison (Antawan); Curry (Stephon); Cooper (Michael)
#8's--Reevis (Darelle); Lofton (Kenny); Nash (Steve); Rip (Richard Hamilton)
#9's--Blaylock (Mookie); Parrish (Lance); Shaka (Smart); Tayshaun (Prince)
#10's--Bradshaw (Terry); Shawn (Sillman); Shane (Brown or Meling); Jackson (Mark)
#11's--Walton (Bill); Wooden (John); Thorpe (Jim); Quinn (Snyder)
#12's--Dirk (Nowitzski); Kobe (Bryant); Lanier (Bob); Zeke (Isaiah Thomas)
#13's--Desmond (Howard); Chaz (Smoot); Tshimanga Biakabutuka; Dez (Bryant)
#14's--Worthy (James); Reggie (Miller); Bo (Shembechler); Vaughn (Ricky "Wild Thing")
#15's--Malone (Karl); Mullin (Chris); Clayton (Mark); Corey (Bechler)
#16's--Anderson (Sparky); Rusty (Kennedy); Kevin (Prater); Manning (Peyton)
All top 16 seeds made it into the Sweet 16 except for Larkin, Carson and the first #1 seed to go down in Peerless. Pulling the upsets were Mookie, Chaz and Dunn. In one of the greatest trivia questions of all-time, Mookie Blaylock (former NBA guard from Oklahoma University) was also the original name of the band Pearl Jam, who named their first album "10" after his uniform number. Chaz pulled the major upset as that name represented one of the best on-court leaders I ever coached, Chaz Smoot (All-American post player from Anderson University). Dunn belonged to Bill Dunn, my high school coach basketball coach at Jonesville. He won a ton of games every year, while teaching class and having the right attitude. He died of cancer when he was 47.
The bracketologist were all wrong as none of the #1 seeds made the Final Four. Robinson, Brady, Lance and Price made their way through the myriad of names to reign supreme. This reminds me of my single greatest prognostication of all time...picking the 2004 NCAA Final Four correctly when #1 Duke, #2 UCONN, #2 Oklahoma State and #3 Georgia Tech all made it. Now, to the big question. Who would my wife pick. She has repeatedly said that she likes last names for first names. Well, there are three in the group.
And the Champion is ....Wait, what's that Doctor? It's a girl? There must be some sort of mistake. I heard you say it would be a boy. You said that there was a 51% chance of it being a boy. Isn't that definitive? But we did a bracket! It's official. It has to be a boy. Okay, that's fine. Tebowa or Bo'Shema works just fine. What's that Tabitha? Just adding an 'a' to the end of a word doesn't make it feminine.
No comments:
Post a Comment