A Reciver By Any Other Name

I'm sure by now you all know that Chad Johnson has legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco. Some people think this is ridiculous, and others think it is funny, and in the end it doesn't matter what any of them think, because it's his name. What bothers me is all this talk about whether or not the NFL should allow him to go by the name, be announced by the name and wear the name on his back.

Of course they should! This isn't Rod Smart who donned HeHateMe on the back of his jersey in the XFL. This isn't Sean "Puffy, P.Diddy, Diddy, Puff Daddy" Combs either. This is a guy with a legal document that says what his name is and the NFL can't tell him any different. There have been other cases of guys who have changed their names, and the name on the back of their jersey changed right along with it. Think back to the late 90's when UCLA HB Sharmon Shah changed his name to Karim Abdul-Jabbar (not to be confused with UCLA C Lew Alcindor, who changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). When the football Jabbar got to the NFL with his new name in tow, he wore it on his back until he lost a lawsuit that sounded like an Arab law firm: Abdul-Jabbar vs Abdul-Jabbar. At that point he became Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, which the NFL also recognized.

All I know is: "His momma named him Clay, I'ma call him Clay."

The point is, if a judge was OK with Chad changing his name, then Roger has to be as well. We live in a nickname world anyway, with announcers often referring to players by their ridiculous monikers, be it ARod, IRod, KRod or GayRod. Why would you shy away from calling a guy by his legal name?