The glory. The adulation. The Budweiser®. These are just some of the great perks of winning the Super Bowl, like the Denver Broncos did in yesterday’s championship game.
Winners’ names live forever as the top football achievers of their time. And for us – those names are glorious.
Here are some of the funnest, most unusual and most delightful names of Super Bowl winning players.
BUBBA PARIS
A name that is the perfect mixture of European sophistication and Southern shrimp trawling, Bubba Paris got that splendid name etched into legend by winning three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s.
CURLEY CULP
This 1970 champion with the Chiefs has the kind of awesome name you’d expect to find mining for gold in westerns. Instead, you’ll find his name in the hall of fame.
Rare profile of Bubba Paris.
BILL PICKEL
The tasty sounding Mr. Pickel not only won the Super Bowl in his rookie season with the Raiders, he also starred in four episodes of Home Improvement after retiring from the game. That’s the kind of versatility champs are made of.
BRIAN BASCHNAGEL
Baschnagel technically didn’t play for the Bears during their ’85 championship year due to injury, but received a ring anyway as a key member of the squad. I am not sure if he participated in the Super Bowl Shuffle, which may have been an even greater achievement than the sporting championship itself.
MADISON HEDGECOCK
2007 champions New York Giants featured these next two splendidly named players. Madison “Mad Dog” Hedgecock earns a spot on the list with a name that rolls of the tongue as smoothly as a freshly opened can of Budweiser®.
Star of the show Wilson, whose brother Wilson appeared in the Tom Hanks film Cast Away.
PLAXICO BURRESS
Getting his unusual first name after his uncle, you could be forgiven for thinking Plaxico Burress was the name of an aluminum processing company rather than a football player. You would of course be wrong, but I wouldn’t hold it against you. Look – it’s an unusual name is what I’m getting after here.
JOHNNY SAMPLE
It’s hard to get more generically awesome than Johnny Sample. His cousing James Person comes close, but there’s a poetic pleasure in the name of this three-time champion.
J.R. SWEEZY
“Easy Sweezy!”, as no one probably said after Seattle’s triumph in the 2014 Super Bowl. I could see him endorsing a whole line of products after retiring from the game. Sweezy Fabrezey! Cheesey Sweezy Dip! Sweezy’s Keysies Locksmithing for Kids! The possibilities are endless.
DONT’A HIGHTOWER
We conclude our list with this pretty badass name. The imposing sounding Mr. Hightower won last year’s championship game with the New England Patriots, his balls remaining undeflated in the run to the trophy. Thinking of messing with Hightower? Dont’a!
I was in stitches last night when they put the name of one of the refs — “Clete”!
Wow, not sure how I missed that, but Clete is a fantastic name. The only other Clete I know of is a baseball player who didn’t even have the funniest name in his family. Clete Boyer’s brother Cloyd Boyer probably took the cake for that family!
My husband couldn’t understand why I was howling about it. When I looked it up to see if I had misread it, I learned that the web exploded over him because he is “hot”… all I noticed was the funny name.
Clete and Cloyd are nearly as funny as Cliven and Ammon!
Clete the Ref had no idea how popular he’d be. We need more Cletes in this world.
Normally everybody is screaming at the refs!
You missed a really really important point, Arto. The Panthers may have lost Super Bowl 50, but they put up a valiant fight with TWO former “Funniest name in the NFL draft” candidates on their starting defensive line. Those would be Kony Ealy and Star Lotulelei. (type those names three times fast and see how bonkers your spell checker goes!)
You overestimate my fast typing skills! I’m lucky if I can spell Lotulelei well once!
Ah, you’re right!
The commentators were relishing the opportunity to say Lotulelei every time he did something. It was a beautiful thing. Hopefully he’ll win one day so we can stick him in this list.
Loved the post. On a separate note, did someone change the “theme” for the BoFN. It looks odd. Like someone messed with the header/banner.
Musta been Arto! He meddles with everything. What a meddler!
I have been meddling with it today! This probably won’t be the final look, but we’re switching it up a bit.
Fannie, I heard Budweiser® paid Arto big bucks to change the theme as part of their BoFN rebranding initiative. He was supposed to give us all a share of the profit but decided to pocket it all for himself and all his fat-cat big banker friends at the ol’ hedge fund.
Hard to choose a favorite, but Curley Culp is definitely a frontrunner for me.
Plaxico Burress is one of those names like Elvis Presley or Barack Obama that you hear so often, you forget how fantastically funny it really is. I guess you don’t hear about Plaxico Burress quite as often as those other two fellas, though…
This is true. I heard the name back when he did the catching the ball thing in the Super Bowl, and then again when he did the other thing in the night club. But I guess I haven’t heard it that often since so I remain unaffected by the Barack-Presley Curse.
love all of these. p.s. – i was very taken by clete (cletus) blakeman. the most cut man on the field on this past sunday. and he was the ref. what an amazing macho cowboy/superbowl ref name.
We might have to put up a special post honoring Clete. A true hero. I’m thinking McConaghey for the movie.
Yes!
I’d turn on the blurb generator, but the blog makeover is TOTALLY FREAKING ME OUT!
It’s OK. I’ll be fine.