To celebrate the launch of a new NFL season, here is a sneak peek into our newest title with a sports-themed story about team name changes throughout history. Story will soon appear in Uncle John’s Perpetually Pleasing Bathroom Reader.

Name Changers

Meet the new team, same as the old team—just with a different name.

New York Titans

The Tennessee Titans weren’t the first Titans in pro football. the first were the New York Titans, a charter member of the American Football League (later absorbed by the NFL) in 1960. The name was a wry reference to the New York Giants of the NFL—in mythology, titans are bigger, stronger, and tougher than giants. the name only lasted for three years. By then the team was playing in brand-new Shea Stadium, located directly beneath the flight paths of two major airports, LaGuardia and JFK, hence the new Jets. (It also rhymed with the name of Shea Stadium’s other team, baseball’s New York Mets.)

Cory Hahn could have been a professional baseball player right out of high school. In 2010, at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, California, he had a .411 batting average and also pitched a 14-1 record. He was also named “Mr. Baseball,” as the state’s best high school player of the year.

But Hahn skipped going pro in favor of a college education, a lifelong goal. He attended Arizona State, and joined the baseball team there. Tragically, in just his second game with the team in 2011, he collided with the second basemen while trying to steal second base and suffered a spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

That was the end of Hahn’s baseball career, but not the end of his baseball story. In early June, Major League Baseball had its annual player draft. With the 1,020^th overall pick, in the 34^th round, the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted Hahn. It’s significant not just for the Arizona connection, but because Hahn wore #34 at Arizona State. And while it may have been a nice gesture, it wasn’t an empty gesture. Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall promised Hahn a job in the team’s front office or as a talent scout, should he want it, upon his graduation.