I am human after all

Well. It happened. It was a couple of months ago but it happened.

I did something that my mother and father did to my brothers and me when I was younger but what I did was so much worse.

Around the sixth month of Susan’s pregnancy, we came up with the name Lincoln. It was a name we had been sitting on for a couple of years.

Little did I know that I would be working alongside a pup named Langston at the PCN. So naturally, when rubbing Susan’s baby-belly I said to my then unborn son,” How are you doing Langston?” Oh no.

Susan let me have it and to this day I try not to call the dog Lincoln or my boy Langston.

Mixing up names was something my parents did, my dad often going through all three of our names before getting to the right son.

As an occupational hazard, it happens to me regularly. I often find it hard to remember what grade student-athletes are in, and at times the faces and names become blurred. It’s because of this fact that I often put my foot in my mouth during interviews.

I feel bad every time it happens because I can relate to being called out of my name. There are times I don’t remember how old I am let alone the more than 50 athletes I write about on a weekly basis.

My mismanagement of names also comes through in print. There have been times that I have misspelled names. It is never intentional, but I understand the frustration as a parent. I am dreading not only teaching my second son how to spell his name L-I-N-C-O-L-N (I probably misspelled it there) but also the poor teachers that may misspell it.

I do sincerely apologize to those students whose names I can’t remember right off the top of my head, even if I talk to them on a weekly basis. I also apologize to the parents for whom I have messed up a newspaper clipping because I misspelled the name of your child or children.