Betty and Adam Watson wanted to raise a child to become a college football coach. The family was from a southern state and knew that a great college football coach could one day be a U.S. Senator. College football coaches are usually the highest-paid state employees, which was also a huge plus. The family also knew that for a college team, the coach was more important than the players. They went to Sideways Marketing to find out how to make their unborn son into a college football coach.
Louis Sideways laid out the steps to make their dream of raising a college football coach a reality.
“Listen, the only thing you can control right now is the name. Indeed, many great coaches have some rather unremarkable names. You have your Nick Sabans, your Lou Sabans and your Lesser Sabans—like a Dan Hawkins.”
“So any generic white first name will do?” Adam Watson asked.
“You could even go with slightly more flair,” Sideways said. “We have our Hughes and our Chips.”
The Watsons liked this idea.
“But that’s true about a lot of professions,” Louis Sideways added. “There are a lot of generic names out there. So the second option is to change your last name.”
“What would we change our last name to?”
“Sarkisian, Freeze, Royal—there are two categories here. You either want something that is just a regular old American word, or something that has a lot of weight to it—Tuberville sounds like a town full of overflowing bathtubs.”
“What do you suggest?” Adam Watson asked.
“Bloomfield could be a fun one. Maybe something like Striker. Striker really evokes a certain feeling when you say it.”
“We’re not changing our last name,” Betty Watson said. “It was a pain for me to change my last name to his last name when we got married.”
“Then your option is to land a really college football coach-sounding first name,” Sideways said, “Animal names do well—Bronco and Bear have both coached teams. So maybe you should pick a name like Stallion or Grizzly.”
“I like Grizzly,” Adam said. His wife glared at him.
“Or you can go the successful route and pick something that sounds like a name, but might not be one? We call this your Jimbo, Dabbo, Kirby route. Maybe name the kid something like that. I recommend Philben or Stumbly.”
“A lot of those are probably just nicknames, right?” Betty asked.
“Yeah, but you can’t put that to chance. It’s hard to get a nickname to stick. Even for me, with a name like Sideways, you’d think I could get people to call me anything. That’s not the case. My nickname in high school was Hairdo Sideways—you think I wanted that? So best to stick to a name. What do you think?”
Betty and Adam looked at each other. Then Adam spoke. “What if we want our unborn child to be a college football announcer?”