You'd never confuse the roster of a sports team for the cast of characters in Homer's Iliad but they have more in common than you think. That's the opinion of Dr. Robert Kennedy, a linguistics professor from UC-Santa Barbara, anyway. In the epic poem Homer refers to many of the major players with nicknames and Dr. Kennedy draws a parallel to the world of sports in an article for the academic journal American Speech in an article published last year. He identifies two types of nicknames, phrasal and hypocoristic, and he credits their use with fostering a sense of community among teammates. Hypocoristic nicknames are shortened versions of someone's given name, A-Rod for example, while phrasal ones are the type that enter the popular lexicon. The Sultan of Swat, The Louisville Lip or The Georgia Peach, for example. Kennedy's work doesn't cite the Baltimore Ravens but the Baltimore Sun takes a look at the colorful variety of nicknames on this year's team and finds plenty of both kinds. Musa Smith is "Moose" while Chris McCallister goes by the flavorless "C-Mac" on the hypocoristic front but it's the phrasal nicknames that really zing. Take 5-6, 201 pound running back Cory Ross, for example.
"I went and ate some pork chops at this guy's house," Ross recalled. "He came back the next day and was telling coaches that I ate about seven pork chops. Ever since then, everybody started calling me 'Pork Chop.' Of course, that was a lie. Then I lost some weight and got down to where I like to be at, and all of a sudden, it went from 'Pork Chop' to 'Chop.'"Samari Rolle is known as "Doorknob" because his head looks like one, Kyle Boller earned the moniker "Jesus in Cleats" from the University of California student newspaper and the massive offensive tackle Adam Terry is better known as "Catfish" for his resemblance to the bottom-feeder.
My personal favorite is backup kicker Rhys Lloyd of Dover, England. His teammates at the University of Minnesota showed their knowledge of history when they dubbed him "Winston Churchill" because of his grace under pressure. Sadly for Lloyd's on-field career, the days of Matt Stover, a.k.a. "Stove Top," have lasted longer than others.
