In This Business, Get a Brand Name

A doll manufacturer once sold a stuffed animal it named “Kareem Abdul Ja-BEAR.”

If I remember correctly, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put a stop to that. He didn’t care for anyone appropriating his name.

I thought Kareem was being a bit too sensitive, at the time. Later on, I felt it was me who was insensitive. A man’s name and identity--conceived from his faith--is not a thing to mock for profit.

But what do you do if someone takes your name and identity, legally?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the old UCLA basketball player, is unhappy with Karim Abdul-Jabbar, the old UCLA football player.

Not with his game. With his name.

In a complaint that amounts to Abdul-Jabbar v. Abdul-Jabbar, the Kareem of the court has taken legal steps to block the Karim of the gridiron from merchandising himself with the same name and number--33--long associated with the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

I can see his point.

Must be odd, seeing a younger “you” running around.

In 1995, Sharmon Shah, a gifted guy from Dorsey High, told his UCLA coaches he was assuming a new name.

UCLA is fairly shockproof, having adapted to Lew Alcindor’s conversion to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and to Keith Wilkes’ changing of his first name to Jamaal.

As long as the decision isn’t frivolous--such as a player asking to be called “Snoop Doggy Bruin,” or “Rock N. Rollen,” or the “Athlete Formerly Known as Keith”--I think everybody is cool with it.

But this time, UCLA’s coaches responded to Shah with something along the lines of: “Your name is what?”

As in: We already have one of those.

They weren’t trying to make fun of him, but it was as though Terry Donahue had suddenly decided to change his name to Bear Bryant.

The football player explained patiently to anyone who would listen that the name was chosen for him, not by him.

It was just the way Elijah Muhammad had hand-picked a new name for the boxing champ, Cassius Marcellus Clay.

After years of proudly comparing his birth name to that of a Roman gladiator’s, the fighter began using a new signature, “Cassius X Clay,” until changing his name permanently at 22. Muhammad was a name meaning “one worthy of praise.” Ali was the name of a warrior, a distant relative of the Prophet Muhammad.

Joe Frazier refused to use it. The president of Madison Square Garden refused to use it. Ali refused to be addressed any other way. He stalked out of the Garden when he was introduced as “Clay,” and took a tremendous amount of heat for it.

Ali said later, “Actors and actresses change their name. The pope changes his name. Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson changed their names. People change their names all the time, and no one complains.”

By the time Sharmon Shah changed his name, it was no big deal.

No big deal to anybody but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose representatives in 1995 did everything they could to persuade Karim Abdul-Jabbar to accept a different name. For here was a player with “Abdul-Jabbar 33” on his uniform, in college and in the NFL.

It was as if Mike Tyson had remade himself as “Muhammad Ali,” and began to recite poetry.

I remember when a new NBA player arrived a few years ago, whose name was Ervin Johnson. There had already been a pretty famous Earvin Johnson in the game. But at least that one was known by a nickname. And a guy can’t help what is on his birth certificate, unless he undergoes a spiritual rebirth.

George Steinbrenner once gave me the needle, because he had an executive named Mike Downey on his New York Yankee payroll. I told him, “You fire everybody else. Why not him?”

I never considered legal recourse.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a sense of humor, as he proved in the movies. (I can watch that “Airplane!” cockpit scene 100 times.) I wish he could laugh off the image of future athletes coming along, taking his name, requesting No. 33, until suddenly there were 100 Abdul-Jabbars, in the NBA, NFL, NHL, NASCAR, everywhere. Talk about immortality.

If not, maybe that Miami Dolphin could do him a big favor, call himself something else.

Karim Ali has a nice ring.