Man-Rule: Sportsmen, Change Your Last Name if It Stars with ‘P’ and Ends with ‘O’

If you’re a Man involved in sports, and your last name starts with the letter ‘P’ and ends with the letter ‘O’, you’re doomed. Recent history would indicate that tragedy, scorn and humiliation will reach up and bite you on the heinie.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the facts:

Rafael Palmeiro was a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s one of only four players to get at least 3,000 hits and 500 home runs in his career. In March of 2005, he testified at a Congressional hearing about steroids in baseball and said, “I have never used steroids, period. I don’t know how to say it more clearly than that. Never. Unless you mean steroids. Then yeah, I use those.”

Okay, he didn’t say that last part, but he did test positive later that same year for steroids. And as a result, he juuuuust missed being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; he needed 75 percent of the vote, and he got 11. SO close.

Rick Pitino is one of the most successful basketball coaches in history, winning at both the college and pro level. He’s the only men’s coach in history who has led three different teams to the Final Four. And in 2003, he got his fettuccini alfredo’ed by a woman at an Italian restaurant and later paid for her to have an abortion. Eventually it turned out that the woman was whackadoodle, which raised the question of why Pitino had sex with her in the first place. The old Italian saying “Don’t dip your breadstick into crazy marinara sauce and then pay for it to have an abortion” was never more apt.

Bobby Petrino is widely considered to be one of the best football coaches in the country, revitalizing the Louisville football program in the early 2000s and leading Arkansas to a top-five finish in 2011. Many said Arkansas would contend for the national championship in 2012, and Petrino was getting paid millions of dollars a year. He was on top of the world.

Unfortunately, he was also on top of a former volleyball player for the University of Arkansas, and she apparently grabbed his Harley Davidson while they were riding on his motorcycle. This caused him to wreck the bike and his career. He’s now heartily, passionately sorry … that he got caught.

Joe Paterno ... well, let's not even go there.  

So if your name begins with P and ends with O, you should think about changing it. And if your last name is Po, just stay away from sports altogether.

(c) 2012 John Puckett