Anybody who has ever played intramurals at Iowa State knows it’s all about the team name, and this year’s pool of basketball names are definitely not lacking in the creativity department.

With names such as the North Alaskan Spotted Owls, Peaceful Grapefruit Cheetahs and Dead Puppies Aren’t Much Fun, one could be entertained extensively by checking out a list of the 272 team names created for this year’s intramural five-player basketball competition.

Morgan Meier, junior in marketing, is captain of the team K-Fed. He holds just one of many different team name creation stories generated by intramural basketball this year.

“The reason is, a bunch of us went on a ski trip and we were assigned to a random roommate. He spent an entire night with his shirt off, and that’s when he became ‘K-Fed.’ The name is in honor of him,” Meier said.

Mitchell Cline, junior in geology, and his teammates used an imaginative approach when they created the Peaceful Grapefruit Cheetahs. Last year, they were the Fighting Banana Slugs, – this year they wanted to be the exact opposite.

“We figured the opposite of fighting is peaceful, the opposite of a banana is a grapefruit, and the opposite of a slug is a cheetah,” Cline said.

Other people are more broad-minded with their team names and the names just come to them. Such is the case for The Babysitter’s Club and its captain, Terry Tipp, sophomore in construction engineering.

“We were just kinda sitting around and we wanted to think of something that would be funny,” Tipp said. “I threw out Babysitter’s Club and everyone laughed, so we went with it. Another reason why we chose Babysitter’s Club is because we wanted to strike fear into the hearts [of] our opponents before they even saw us so that we would have that mental edge.”

Bret Euken, senior in agricultural engineering, said the North Alaskan Spotted Owls produced their team name in a very similar manner.

“My roommate and I were making fun of all the weird names and it just came up in a random conversation,” Tipp said. “We both thought it was funny so we went with it. Our team names have always been animal oriented.”

Associate Director of Recreation Services Garry Greenlee has been dealing with these team names for 28 years and he’s seen it all, but his favorite team names are the mysterious ones.

“The team names that you have to interpret and try to find out what they mean are my favorite,” Greenlee said.

A simple knowledge of modern popular culture could get you a long way in trying to decode many of the team names in this year’s competition.

Shawn Nuetzman, senior in health and human performance, is the captain of Johnny Drama’s Calf Implants, and he’s received a few comments from devoted “Entourage” fans during his games.

“Johnny Drama is one of the characters on the [TV] show ‘Entourage,'” Nuetzman said. “He always does weird stuff. Once he borrowed money from his friend for calf implants. Avid fans get a kick out of it. I’ve gotten three or four comments about it so far this year.”

These names are a part of ISU culture and will be going nowhere soon. When asked how long these crazy names have lasted, Greenlee said “forever.”