Archdeacon
Even so, unique names aren’t always easy to deal with when you are younger, admitted Sibande, a 6-foot-3 sophomore guard out of Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis.
“My father named me Nike because he really liked the brand,” he said. “Growing up, though, I was kind of insecure about it. I was like ‘Dang, a lot of people are giving me attention because of it.’ I didn’t like that.
“And if I didn’t turn out to be as gifted as I am, it would have been terrible having a name like that and trying to play basketball.”
He doesn’t have that worry now.
Last season, he started every game as a freshman, led Miami in scoring and was named the Mid-American Conference freshman of the year.
This season he again leads the RedHawks in scoring, averaging 16.9 points.
“Growing up I definitely adjusted to my name,” Sibande said. “I really embraced it.”
No one has done that any better than Calamity Jo McEntire, who comes close to eclipsing her famed namesake Calamity Jane, who was born Martha Jane Canary in Missouri in 1852 and became an Annie Oakley-type figure out West.
She was a professional scout, a close companion of Wild Bill Hickok and often appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. And while her story has been made into movies, a stage play and been in dime novels, TV shows and even a video game, she never sang and tap danced in her own show in Branson, Missouri, as did McEntire.
Nor did she play college basketball, get mentored by the late, great Tennessee coach Pat Summitt and embark on her own college coaching career that included six stops, five in the Far West and Hawaii before joining Shauna Green’s staff at UD in June 2017.
Yet, with the Flyers players, she’s not called Calamity or thought of as Reba McEntire’s kin.
She’s a basketball woman.
She’s Coach Mac.
Embracing oddness
When 6-foot-6 Precious Ayah came to America from Okpoama, Nigeria in 2012 to begin his high school career at Greenforest Christian Academy in Decatur Georgia, he said some of the other boys at the school questioned his name.
“Everybody was like, ‘Your name is Precious? That’s a girl’s name!’
“But back in Nigeria it’s a common name to have.”
Actually, he said, it began as his middle name: “My first name is Otonworio, but everybody called me Precious and I made it my first name. And I like it. One day if I have a son, I think I will call him Precious, too.”
But before starting a family, he wants to blossom as a college basketball player.
He was recruited to Miami by former coach John Cooper, but just before his initial 2016-17 season he tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in practice.
He sat out the season — managed a 3.8 grade-point average — and rehabbed from surgery.
When Cooper was fired, new coach Jack Owens came in and three of the six foreign-born players on the roster left. Ayah stayed and played in 15 games last year.
This season he had played in eight of nine games going into Saturday’s contest with Purdue Fort Wayne, had a careerhigh 10 points against Wilberforce a week ago and is getting the last laugh when it comes to those guys who scoffed at his name.
“The girls all love my name,” he grinned. “They’re like, ‘Oh Preeeeeciuous!’”
Like Precious and Nike, Central State’s Bishop James learned to live with a different name as he was growing up in Port Arthur, Texas.
“Some people were like ‘Bishop? That’s a chess piece!’” he said with a smile. “In high school, when we’d play rival teams and they knew my name, some would be like, ‘Hey, he’s got a preacher’s