New Yorkers wishing to visit, or travel through, New Jersey have plenty of options. Among them are bridges: the George Washington, named after, um, George Washington; the Goethals, named after ... George Washington Goethals; and, finally, the Outerbridge Crossing. It is not named for the first president, nor for its location as the outermost/southernmost option in the five boroughs, on Staten Island. Instead, it honors Eugenius Outerbridge, the aptly monikered first chairman of the local Port Authority.
Outerbridge is a Name of the Year legacy. Georgetown architect Outerbridge Horsey (and his six so-named ancestors) finished 15th in 2007. So maybe that’s why the bridge came to mind when considering Bulltron Regional top seed Dr. Trentington Outhouse. The good doctor, a Louisiana native, is not employed in the sanitary arts but instead works with bridges of another sort: He’s a dentist. Dr. Outhouse easily flushed away Myking Worboys in the first round. Next he’ll attempt to brush off a tasty invasion by No. 8 Dijonnaise Norman of Rochester, N.Y., who does not agree with the president calling the press the enemy of the people.
Lower down in the Bulltron, soccer fans will notice the name of the man who, we have learned this year, seemed destined from birth to solve the problems at Old Trafford after Jose Mourinho’s reign of error. We speak of teenaged Namibian footballer and No. 3 seed Manchester United MacGyver. Like his surname namesake, MacGyver is hoping to blow shit up in his the second round against No. 6 seed Apollokreed Gardner, who failed to appear in court on drug charges in Kentucky last year.
In the Sithole Regional, the big match is No. 7 Sharky Laguana, frontman for the indie-rock band Creeper Lagoon and owner of a van named Kathleen, against No. 2 Deicide Huxtable, which succinctly describes what Hannibal Buress did to Bill Cosby’s career. Huxtable, a native of Bartonville, Ill., graduated high school in May 2018, just months before Bartonville’s most famous son, Jim Thome, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Bartonville’s most famous daughter? Colona Beeler-Ricketts, of that Ricketts Family, who was “a professional ice skater in Chicago until she fell and broke both of her wrists.”)
Will Sharky chew up the field or be chum on the road to the Final Four? Vote below in the first half of the round, follow us on Twitter, and send 2020 nominations to nameoftheyear@gmail.com.
Bulltron regional
Sithole Regional
Dan Wachtell is a lawyer, soccer enthusiast, and occasional writer living in Brooklyn.