Those of you who are anxiously awaiting the return of Lost and have recently found yourself doing a lot of channel surfing might have noticed that college basketball is in full swing. Even if you haven’t seen a game yet, you surely know that every year around this time Dick Vitale thinks that people care about his stupid little terms, pretty much everyone in America disagrees with everything Doug Gottlieb has to say, and some of the biggest programs in college basketball play in those tournaments that take place in gyms that hold 200 people. Ah yes, it’s college basketball season alright. But along with preseason tournaments and ESPN personalities making America collectively change the channel, something else is becoming a constant in the college basketball world—Evan Turner is basically dominating his opponents. With that in mind, I think it’s a perfect time to outline what could very well be the coolest thing I’ll ever do with my life.
Last season I wrote a blog entry briefly explaining how Evan Turner gave himself the nickname “The Kid” for reasons unknown to just about everyone. My guess is that he’s just a big Bruce Willis fan and felt like “The Kid” made more sense than “Die Hard”. (More nicknames based on titles of Bruce Willis movies could include “The Jackal”, “Armageddon”, “The Siege”, “Apocalypse”, “Unbreakable”, “Grand Champion”, “Alpha Dog”, and “The Astronaut Farmer”. Ok, so maybe the last one isn’t all that great.) Whatever the case, I thought that the concept of him nicknaming himself was pretty lame (so much so that I nicknamed myself as a way of mocking him) which is why I decided that I would intercede and give him a much better nickname. My choice was “The Villain” simply because, at the time, I had been commenting on my blog about his Facebook status updates and most of them mentioned how he was “chillin”. It was admittedly a pathetic nickname, but the Trillion Man March responded favorably to it and now it’s easy to see why. “The Villain” is the absolute perfect nickname for Evan Turner for a variety of reasons.
He Wreaks Havoc on Other Teams
If you’ve watched any of our games so far this year, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that Evan Turner is good at basketball. Like, really good. So far he has recorded two triple-doubles, which is impressive considering that that is twice the number of triple-doubles of every other tOSU player in history combined. Evan and I have had and continue to have our differences (more on this in a little bit), but even I have to admit that The Villain is clearly one of the best players in all of America (including Central and South America). He’s the most versatile player in college basketball and has to be a match-up nightmare for coaches. Plus, he has a killer mentality, so much so that he’d probably put your puppy in a figure four leg lock if given the chance. Evan should be a shoo-in for the All-American team (which means Doug Gottlieb will have him as honorable mention all-conference) if he keeps up his current level of play, making it easy to see how he will basically be playing the role of villain for opposing teams all season.
Every Hero Needs A Villain
I’ve already made it perfectly clear with the links I’ve provided in some of my earlier posts, that I’m not afraid to admit that I know the words to more Enrique Iglesias songs than I probably should. More importantly, I’ve made it perfectly clear that I can be your hero, baby. Most of you didn’t take me up on that offer, which makes sense considering you probably want your heroes to be able to do more than belch the ABC’s and give phenomenal karaoke performances of Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” (maybe you don’t, in which case I will gladly be your hero). For argument’s sake, though, let’s just call me the hero so this whole scenario works out.
Evan initiated his role as the villain of my life pretty much the day he stepped on campus. He came to Ohio State with an enormous chip on his shoulder and was, by his own admission, pretty irritable in those early days. Since I take pride in getting under people’s skin, Evan presented a prime opportunity for me to have a little fun. Unfortunately, he took my playful jabs personally and would retort with the kind of insults that suggest that maybe he was taking the verbal debate a little too far. Basically, my comments prompted an “Oh no he di-unt!” response from onlookers whereas Evan’s comments prompted an “Umm…Evan…you can’t say things like that to people and still be accepted by society” response from onlookers. A better way of putting it for all the Super Troopers fans out there would be that my shenanigans were cheeky and fun but his shenanigans were cruel and tragic…which makes them not shenanigans at all really. He has loosened up a great deal in the few years he’s been here, but we still have altercations in which he calls me “walk-on” or “manager” more than he calls me by my name and I return the favor by explaining that even though I am a walk-on, I still have a better jumpshot than him (even though our game against St. Francis would suggest otherwise—I’ll discuss this in the next post). It’s an ongoing battle in which one of us has to be labeled the good guy and one of us has to be labeled the bad guy. My style of insulting is similar to how all the superheroes never try to actually kill their nemeses, but instead just try to beat them up so badly that they want to give up their life of destruction and mayhem. Evan’s style of insulting, on the other hand, can be likened to how villains always try to kill the heroes and the heroes’ families. With that in mind, it’s pretty easy to see which one of us deserves the hero label and which one deserves the villain label.
Not Every Blog Needs A Villain, But Mine Clearly Has One
I like to think that there are two different people inside of Evan Turner—the one who attacks me personally and the one who attacks my blog and the Trillion Man March. I wrote about the first Evan in the segment above. The second Evan is a little bit different in his approach. He still tries to terrorize my life and those around me, but he does it as if he is playing along with the character I have made him out to be. I portray Evan as an elaborate adversary of mine, when really the only reason we ever butted heads is because he was maybe a little too weak-minded and I was maybe a little too antagonistic. Still, he seems to have embraced his role as the villain of my blog as he makes snide remarks about how all of you who regularly read need to get a life (attacking me is one thing, but attacking the TMM is completely unacceptable). The anger he directs toward me about something I wrote or something one of you said to him about my blog comes from a completely different source than when he tells me that the only reason females have ever talked to me is because I know him and the only reason I’ll ever get anywhere in life is because I ride the coattails of others (both of which could very well be true). It’s a different type of anger because it’s a completely different person. Instead of the normal Evan, he is embracing the role of a character, making him a villain in both my personal and public life. He takes pride in playing the character that I portray him to be on the blog mostly because….
He Actually Likes Being Called “The Villain”
Despite Evan consistently complaining about my blog and really just me in general, the one thing that he has definitely become a fan of is the nickname I gave him. Proof of this is that on several occasions he has referred to himself by the nickname saying things like “The Villain is killin” while he’s having a good practice (is it still third person when it’s a nickname?). I’ve also overheard him introduce himself as The Villain to people who are familiar with my blog. He initially hated the nickname simply because I came up with it, but just like I have to set personal matters aside and admit that he’s a great basketball player, he has to set personal matters aside and admit that “The Villain” is a great nickname. When your greatest enemy approves of a nickname you gave him, it’s a safe bet that the nickname is pretty awesome. This case is no different.
What I really want from this whole nicknaming business is to take “The Villain” from a Club Trillion thing to a worldwide thing. As of now, the only people that call him “The Villain” are those who either read my blog or are familiar with my blog. While I take great satisfaction in knowing that you all have embraced the nickname, the fact remains that the rest of the world that is yet to discover my blog (it must suck to be them) has no idea about the nickname of “The Villain” for Evan Turner. That’s where you come in and help execute what is essentially an enormous prank I’m playing on Evan.
As I said, most of you already refer to Evan as “The Villain” which is exactly what needs to happen for the nickname to stick, but along with that I’m counting on you to spread the word to non-Trillion Man Marchers. If you know people who work in media-related fields, tell them about the nickname so they can drop it in their articles/reports involving The Villain. If your friends are tOSU fans and say something like “Ohio State will go as far as Evan Turner takes them”, ask them who Evan Turner is and/or tell them that they meant to say “The Villain”.
There’s no denying that a solid number of you are on board with the nickname, but Malcolm Gladwell would point out that it is yet to reach the tipping point in which “The Villain” is one of the great nicknames in sports. Do your part and eliminate “Evan Turner” from your vocabulary and replace it with “The Villain”. If people start asking questions, send them to the blog for their answers and then treat them as inferior people for not knowing about my blog or The Villain’s nickname. I fully expect us to get Sportscenter anchors to call him “The Villain” by the end of the season and really for the rest of his career in both college and the NBA. If the Trillion Man March can make this happen, you will all be heroes of mine (and as such, I will stop linking to Enrique and stop trying to be your hero). Batman claims that you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. But if everything goes according to plan, in my mind you are a hero if you live long enough to see Evan become “The Villain”.
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This is my last post of Movember, which means it’s time for me to thank all of you for taking part in this fantastic charity event. According to my Movember team page, 56 of you were willing to grow out your stache for a great cause. In reality there was at least 57 of you because my dad also grew out his mustache but was too cool to join my team (thanks for killing my chances at the “biggest Movember team” award, dad). I promised shout-outs to all of you throughout the month and to nobody’s surprise, I failed to deliver. So now I’m going to do my best to make amends by showing off all the mustaches of the people who took the time to upload their picture to the Movember team page. Here you go.
Brian Dascenzo
Brian Francis
Ryan Harmanis
Jake Rice
Mark McCain
And of course, my final product…
I’m available to babysit your kids just about any weeknight
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Don’t forget that Club Trillion t-shirts are now available here. 100% of the proceeds benefit A Kid Again, a local charity aimed at enhancing the quality of life for children with life-threatening illnesses. Plus, you get a high quality shirt that will make you look a little bit better than you currently do.
LEGAL NOTICE: Club Trillion and A Kid Again assume no liability if you are ugly. Some ugliness can’t be masked, no matter how awesome the shirt may be. ___________________________________________________
Streak for the Cash Group Leader: T. Rittenhouse (streak of 15 wins)
Streak for the Cash Group Loser: S. Kornblau (streak of 9)
Your awesome YouTube was sent in to me by Brian T. and is absolutely fake but I’m way too lazy to care. There’s your shout-out, Brian. And here's your video.
Your Friend and My Favorite,
Mark Titus
Club Trillion Founder