Friday, August 29, 2014

GSNHOF Nominee - Frostee Rucker (And a question)

First the question - should I include nicknames in future GSNHOF nominations?  My policy since day one has been only birth names, but that knocks out so many great options.  Stubby Clapp, Sloppy Thurston, Foxxy Grandpa Bannon - just a lot of really good nicknames out there.  I figured I'd ask you guys what you thought - would that tarnish the hall, or just make it more awesome?

But we're here today to talk about Frostee Rucker

Rucker was a third round pick of the Bengals in the 2006 draft.  He played in Cincy from 2006-2011 with 19 games started, seven sacks, and an interception.  Since then he spent a year in Cleveland (16 starts, four sacks) and last year in Arizona (one start, one sack).  He's still hanging around in Arizona, and this next season will mark his ninth in the league.

What's great about these great names is when there's a nice story behind it.  And Rucker has a great story behind his too, which he explained in a Cleveland.com article during his time with the Browns.

Turns out his Dad was not only in the military, but that, while there, he was also a D.J.  They called him D.J. Frost because he was "cold on the spins," and so Dad figured that Frostee was going to get a chilly nickname no matter what he did given his Dad's success.  So rather than have others dub the kid "Ice Cold" or "Little Frost" or something similar, they beat the public to the punch and named their kid Frostee.  Since then Dad has also changed his name to Frostee (from Len) which would technically make the NFL player a Junior.  And additionally, Rucker says if he has a son someday, he may name that son Frostee as well - so we could have a Wonderful Terrific Monds the Third situation brewing in the Rucker lineage.

So good luck to Frostee Rucker on Ballot 8 of the GSNHOF.  And I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of hungry for some Wendy's now.

To see the best sports names of all time, visit the Truly Great Names page.
To see some good sports names that were voted out, visit the Good Names page.
To see the current voting ballot, visit the Ballot page.

2 comments:

  1. I think the nickname can only count if it embellishes an already great name. My case for it would be Johnny Dickshot which is a name worth mentioning. But when you add his nickname in there it becomes more than great it becomes, wait for it..... Legendary!!!

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    1. So like Richard Clapp (aka Stubby Clapp) no (although Dick Clapp is pretty funny haha).

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