What’s in a name? A lot of fun stuff …

Sports

May 18

*Donald Beavers (Courtesy of Oregon State University Athletics)*

To our readers:

I’ve always gotten a kick out of some of the unusual names of sports figures. For fun, I’m re-posting a column I wrote for the Portland Tribune in 2013 on the same subject from a national perspective (Can’t believe I left out race car driver Dick Trickle.)

Recently, I got to thinking about my favorite sports names on a local level. Off the top of my head, I came up with this dozen:

• Al-Farouq Aminu, a forward for the Trail Blazers, 2015-19. (The soft-spoken Nigerian-American was known as “Chief” by teammates and fans. Coach Terry Stotts often referred to him as “Farouq.” What I found odd was, nobody called him “Al.”)

• Vytautas Andriuskevicius, a left back for the Timbers from 2016-18. (The Lithuanian who played with the MLS club from 2016-18 was known as “Vytas.” Borrowing from a line once used on the Blazers’ Arvydas Sabonis, he was our Vytas, not yours.)

• Donald Beavers, a running back at Oregon State in 1983 and ’84. (He led Joe Avezzano’s 2-9 Beavers with 392 rushing yards the second year.)

• Wesly Mallard, a linebacker at Oregon from 1998-2001. (He walked on at Oregon and wound up playing eight seasons in the NFL.)

• Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, a center from Cameroon who played for the Trail Blazers from 2001-04. (Why settle for one Boumtje when you can have two?)

• Destiny Slocum, who played Oregon State women’s basketball from 2018-20. (Her destiny wasn’t Corvallis; she transferred to Arkansas for this, her senior season.)

• Bright Dike, Nigerian forward who played with Timbers from 2010-13. (I’ll let you provide the punch line.)

• Georgios Papagiannias, a center from Greece who played one game (four minutes) with the Blazers in 2017-18. (Does anyone remember this 7-1 youngster? Had he hung around long enough, he’d have been known as “Gorgeous Georgios”.)

• Aristotle Thompson, a Jesuit High running back in the mid-1990s now the running backs coach at California (A deep thinker, I would think.)

• Dontonio Wingfield, a forward with the Trail Blazers from 1995-98. (Whenever I hear this dude’s name, I think of Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of that era.)

• Goliath Yeggins, a forward who played at Washington-Monroe High in the late 1970s. (He was 6-5 and strong but vulnerable to a slingshot.)

• Million Harvest McGilvrey, a forward at the University of Portland from 1950-53. (My personal favorite name by a long shot, the 6-5 Los Angeles native averaged 16.4 points as a senior for the Pilots.)

Tell me who I’ve missed, readers.

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