Team names add creativity, vulgarity to intramural sports

In the end, "We Aren't Gonna Lose" lost, "Super Awesome" wasn't, "The Answer" couldn't find one in the win column and "Team Forfeit Win" forfeited all their games. "Godzilla" bested "Artest's Army," "Big Scary Dinosaurs" couldn't take down the "No Names," and "I Don't Know" faced off against "Bo Doesn't Know" in what was surely a contest of who didn't know more. "We Love Mike Davis" never did get a chance to play "Bring Bobby Back," and "We're Dating Your Sister" -- at the advice of an opponent -- treated her well.\nThat's just a snapshot of an often overlooked aspect of intramural sports: Coming up with a team name. Some go for the less-creative route ("Basketball Team"), some boast of their talents ("See Ya in the Finals"), some use it to insult their opponents or themselves ("What Your Mom Does") and some just go with whatever's on their mind ("Too many clothes, not enough booty slappin'").\nFor Josh Downing, assistant director of intramurals, the team name is a chance for students to flex their creative muscles. \n"It's one of the most creative aspects of our program," Downing said. "I think it's pretty important that they can choose the name. It's a neat thing for them to be able to do and, as you see, some teams get pretty creative."\nSenior Dave Fladung captains "He's Just a Little Guy," a basketball team named for a famous line from the film "Tommy Boy." Fladung said using a humorous name helped his squad's approach.\n"It's mostly just supposed to be funny," he said. "We didn't want a name that seemed like we were full of ourselves. If you take yourself too seriously, you forget it's just intramural games. We're pretty much competitive enough, so humor never hurts."\nSexual double entendres are another popular theme -- from basketball's "Premature Shooters" to softball's "Masterbatters" and "We Like Balls Flying at Our Heads." Junior Jocelyn Wesler plays for the latter and came up with the name from a scene in "Clueless."\n"When you're playing softball, the balls are flying at your head and you've got to catch them," Wesler said. "I've played softball my whole life, so I've always liked balls flying at my head. (The name) is fun. When people see who they're playing, they think it's funny." \nWesler also plays intramural football. Her team: "Touchdown My Pants."\nOther names just defy convention -- such as the kickball team named for "Dale Earnhardt's Mustache."\n"We all got big into Nascar and the Nascar hysteria," said Captain Jordan Click, a junior. "We were just fascinated with Dale Earnhardt and there was no more distinguishing trait than his mustache."\nClick said such a strange name amused some opponents and brought the experience into perspective.\n"Some people snicker about it a little bit, but it's something better than a generic name," he said. "I think it's important. A lot of people take intramurals too seriously and you see a team name like that and it relaxes people a little bit."\nFor Downing, one of his favorites is "We're Dating Your Sister," a basketball team captained by graduate student Bob Hayes. \n"It wasn't anything super special, we were just sitting around and it came up at the spur of the moment. It wasn't planned," Hayes said. "It's always nice when you walk into a game and the ref calls out the team names and says, 'We're Dating Your Sister.' The other team might chuckle."\nAfter their last game, an opposing player walked up to Hayes and told him to treat his sister well.\n"I didn't pick up on it at first, but afterwards I laughed about it," Hayes said.\nDowning said his office does encounter team names that are too offensive. In those cases, he said, he talks with the captains and arranges a new name, usually without incident. But he did admit that those who try to blur the line between appropriate and inappropriate sometimes are the most memorable. \n"The ones that stick out the most are ones I probably shouldn't talk about," he said. "But there have been so many of them, there's definitely been some interesting ones." \n-- Contact Staff Writer Gavin Lesnick at glesnick@indiana.edu.