Name of the Game:
Coach Darkness and the U11 Nickname Tradition
by Aislinn Leonard
“Joker, Red, Angel, Bones, down the line!” “Hobbes, Pele, Bruiser, Seven, tight on your marks!” If you are within earshot of the U11 pitch on a Sunday morning you might think you are overhearing secret coded commands for a covert mission. What you are actually hearing are the U11 coaches sending out orders to their players, most of whom have nicknames, (and those who don’t, will soon have one) assigned by Coach Gwenn Barker. Like you, we wondered where and when this naming game all got started.
In the first U11 season, quite a few years back, coaches Michael Bathke, Dan Toomey, and Gwenn were holding practice (and goofing around) and thought it would be fun to use nicknames to help remember players’ names. Gwenn says, “I have a hard time with real names, but I can remember a nickname, no problem.” Gwenn isn’t quite sure which was the first name they ever gave out, but one of the earliest she recalls was given after she asked a player what his favorite vegetable was. When he replied with a very unexpected, “parsnips,” he became “Snippy!” It didn’t take long before all the other kids wanted a name too. “With every name it’s about personality. I’ve got to be around a kid and get to know him or her a bit, and it just comes naturally. Some names come to us quickly, and others take time to emerge, it can’t be forced. All the U11s wear their nicknames like a badge of honor,” says Gwenn.