Nick Toon (No Nickelodeon)

Perusing Twitter a few weeks ago, I came across Wisconsin Senior wideout Nick Toon's Twitter handle -- @TOOOOOOOOOOON -- a tip of the cap to the fans who bellow his name after every catch. It's not the funniest or most clever, but it's my new favorite Twitter handle. My first thought was to count the number of "O"s because why not? I was pleased to count 11 "O"s. Solid. Eleven is an arbitrary, clunky number. Ten is nice and clean. The 11 tells me Toon typed a "T," placed his right index finger on the "O" key and held it there for a few seconds, and followed up with an "N." Had he been concerned with aesthetics or practicality, he would have made it an even ten. I immediately thought of situations in which his Twitter handle may be problematic:

UW-MADISON STUDENT: I'll hit you on Twitter about this Agricultural Journalism project. What's your handle?

TOON: It's TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON.

UW-MADISON STUDENT: Uhh, how many "O"s is that?

TOON: Jesus, I have no idea. Just type my name in the search box and my account should pop up on the right side.

UW-MADISON: So you want me to type your name into Twitter? Is this some kind of lame attempt to show me how many people are talking about you?

TOON: I have over five thousand followers.

And so on.

I've often wondered if athletes seriously consider why the crowd chants their name. They're fan favorites or good players, those seem like the obvious answers. Sometimes familiarity with a player -- he's played most or all of his career for the same team, or even tradition -- we chant his name because we've always done it, play a part. During pregame introductions in the 1990s, roars of LUUUUUUUUUUUUUC would fill the United Center when Luc Longley was introduced. Nowadays, Luc has been replaced with LUUUUUUUUUUUU for Luol Deng. For Bulls fans, tradition meets appreciation in the form of pregame introductions. Each time Packers fullback John Kuhn touches the ball, Lambeau is engulfed in KUUUUUUUUUUUUHN chants. Kuhn is a short and stout white guy who does all the dirty work. His primary role is that of lead blocker, but he will occasionally be asked to pick up short yardage or catch a checkdown out of the backfield and take on a linebacker head on. Kuhn's look and style of play appeal to the blue-collar sensibilities of the Green Bay fans. He could be and probably is the guy sitting next to you at Joe's Texas Barbecue, wolfing down the hefty pulled pork sandwich.

TOOOOOOOOOOON is a combination of all of these elements. Former walk-on Luke Swan preceded Toon at Wisconsin and became a fan favorite. Camp Randall shouted LUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE after every catch and held their right arms at 90 degree angles, rotating their hand to resemble a swan's head. Aided by his father's impressive NFL and UW resume, Toon endeared himself to the crowd with his athleticism and knack for making the spectacular catch. Now a Senior, Toon has developed into the consistent Number One receiver the team envisioned him as two years ago. Chants of his name are as much an appreciation for his development as a player as they are an adherence to tradition and nepotism.

As nice as it is to talk of tradition and performance, we cannot ignore the obvious. There are many great players, iconic players, all-time great players who have never heard their name chanted in a stadium. This isn't because they are overlooked or their home fans are shitty. They simply do not have names as aurally pleasing or compatible with a sustained chant. Peyton Manning, Brian Urlacher, James Harrison, Adrian Peterson -- great players, but names that need to be broken down to multiple syllables in order to chant. They just wouldn't sound as good.

Not to take anything away from the Nick Toons of the world, but he clearly is the beneficiary of a perfect name. The special sign of appreciation Camp Randall shows to him is as arbitrary as the number of "O"s in his Twitter handle. The fans mostly scream his name because the close back rounded vowel sound in "Toon" is nice to listen to for 5-10 seconds at a time. And this is why @TOOOOOOOOOOON is my new favorite Twitter handle. It caused me to contemplate an otherwise glossed-over subtlety of fan behavior, and I now know what a close back rounded vowel sound is. 

Neither of these pieces of information are useful in any way.  

An Unlikely Luc Longley Sighting

Last weekend I found myself in a retro bowling alley. Everything, and I mean everything, from the bowling balls, to the bar, to the employees, were aged at least sixty years. The left corner of the alley was doused with a touch of modernity in the form of fifteen year-old pinball machines. My favorite of which was NBA Fastbreak, a ditty from 1997, featuring Nick Van Exel, Clyde Drexler, Luc Longley, Jerry Stackhouse, Penny Hardaway, Jason Kidd, and Detlef Schrempf. One of these things is not like the others.
To recap: by 1997 standards, we have one future Hall of Famer (Drexler), two perennial All-Stars (Van Exel and Schrempf), two up and coming superstars (Kidd and Stackhouse), and Nike's latest prodigal son (Hardaway). Then there's the lonely Aussie, who looks to be playing help defense on Drexler, and primed to end up on a poster.
Before I get to Longley, I feel that Van Exel, Stackhouse, and Schrempf aren't nearly talked about enough for the right reasons. Van Exel doesn't receive enough credit for dispelling the myth that left-handers were incapable of playing the point guard position. Don't remember that myth? Just take my word for it, the 1990s were filled with some truly reprehensible people. As far as I'm concerned, without the trailblazing efforts of Van Exel and Derrick Coleman, players like Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith wouldn't exist.
In the mid-90s, Stackhouse was dubbed as the next MJ. Sure, he flew through the air like young Jordan, and attended North Carolina, but the similarities pretty much ended there. Stackhouse provided plenty of highlight reel dunks during his first two years in a 76ers uniform. All pale in comparison to the two-piece he hit Jeff Hornacek with during a game his rookie year.
I hated Jeff Hornacek as a kid. Him and Stockton made up the dirtiest backcourt I've seen to this day, except nobody acknowledged this at the time because they wore bowl cuts and didn't have tattoos. The Bulls played the Jazz in two straight Finals, so the nuances of that Utah team got on my nerves. Especially the way Hornacek used to rub his cheek before attempting every free show. The gesture was dedicated to his wife and kids, to show that he was still thinking of them. Spare me. For some reason, this makes me even angrier now than it did then.
Even if Stackhouse's punches appear unprovoked, I feel pretty comfortable with my belief that they certainly were not. My opinion of Hornacek hasn't changed in thirteen years, and no one can tell me different.
I spent a year and half of my prime childhood years trying to figure out what Detlef Schrempf was. Not who he was, but what he was. I was convinced he was a genetic cross between an iguana and Ivan Drago, created for the specific purpose of embarrassing American basketball players. Schrempf had one of the prettiest jumpers I've ever seen and shot a remarkable percentage for someone who took as many outside shots as he did.
Schrempf also has an entertaining blog: Det's Ramblings, that I suggest you read.

Now for the difficult part: what to say about Luc Longley. I watched almost every one of his games for four years of his career and am still at a loss for words. I think this Longley highlight reel, 95 percent of which is made up of dunks and layups does the trick:   



To truly appreciate Luc Longley, you have to look beyond what he did on the basketball court. As the video shows, what Longley did on the court was far from spectacular. He won three championships with the Bulls, was limited offensively, but was not expected to contribute much other than solid defense and smart passes within the triangle offense. Luc Longley is more interesting when stripped from the context of basketball. Here's some Longley anecdotes:
1) Longley was known as a gentle giant. According to Longley's back-up, Bill Wennington, "[Longley] was just a fun kid. He tried to do his best on the basketball floor, but he really just wanted to have fun. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He actually seemed to love everybody he knew on the team." You can imagine how well his attitude went over with Michael Jordan, who was a tad more unforgiving on the court.
2) During a November west coast trip with Chicago, Longley and teammate Jud Buechler went bodysurfing on their day off. Longley was picked up and dropped by a wave and ended up separating his shoulder. He had to wear a shoulder pad for the next few weeks and his teammates joked that he looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Why do we not have side-by-side pictures of a crippled Longley and the Hunchback of Notre Dame? I wish we had today's version of the Internet back then.
3) In 2009, Longley won a 2,900 dollar eBay bid to name a newly discovered shrimp off the southwest coast of Australia. He named the shrimp after his 15 year-old daughter.
4) While playing for the Suns, Longley was stung twice by a scorpion while sifting through the CD collection in his home.
5) He once backed down from a game of one-on-one against a drunk 60-year-old Lithuanian with a 4-inch vertical leap. Story.

When my confidence as a writer and human being wavers, I think of Luc Longley -- who despite averaging 7 points and 5 rebounds in his 12-year career, won three championships and one of the seven coveted spots on NBA Fastbreak. Anything is possible.