Nicknaming college athletes — or any athlete for that matter — is a precise science that, when done properly, can reap results that are as satisfying as, say, a proper basement remodeling.
The best ones are punchy or transformative, like calling Kenny Hill “Kenny Trill”; on the flip side, completely whimsical nicknames can rock, too, like bestowing “Honey Badger” upon Tyrann Mathieu. Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace has a nickname that’s simple, but also incredibly random: Dr. Bo Wallace. It’s actually more simple than most: a professional prefix has been added to his name and voila, there you have it: a great little moniker that’s pinged around the ‘net each Saturday.
Where that nickname came from, though, can be traced to the college football guys at SB Nation, and its origins are now the subject of a video that SBN’s Dan Rubenstein details here. To summarize, apparently several of the writers were going over preseason stuff last year, got drunk, and began playing video games when one of the writers, Jason Kirk, used Ole Miss as his team. Ryan Nanni, otherwise known to the Twitterverse as the omnipresent Celebrity Hottub, then drunkenly began shouting “Dr. Bo!” at the screen. A name was born.
That isn’t the only popular college football nickname SB Nation has coined. FOX Ohio writer Zac Jackson credits Every Day Should Be Saturday’s Spencer Hall with bestowing the term “MACtion” upon the Mid-American Conference.
Forget ESPN. Those guys seem to have all the fun.
