He pulled a “Donaghy”. 

    Tim Donaghy is the NBA referee accused of betting on sports including games in which he refereed. Whenever you do something so dastardly like fixing the leg of a president assassinating actor – “Your name is Mudd” – or performing a sexual act with a sitting president – “She did a Lewinsky!” – or committing a double murder and getting away with it – “He pulled an O.J.” you’ll not only bring shame to your family, your name itself will become synonymous with a nefarious act.

    Indiscretions costing presidential candidates elections will always be “He Riced that election.” In reference to monkey business Donna Rice and Gary Hart were into on a boat of the same name. It didn’t matter she wore “No Excuses” jeans, paramour denims if you will, or wasn’t camera shy, her name will always symbolize wrecking an election.

    The name Vick, we predict, will stand-in for cruelty to dogs. “That poor pooch. Somebody Vicked him.” And in some ways that’s the ultimate punishment, to have your name stand for a misdeed.

    Having your name double for a particular act doesn’t work for everyone. If you have a common name like Michael and you do something naughty, you’ll get a pass. Michael Jackson and George Michael tried their best to sully the Michael name but their efforts were watered down by the oceans of other Michaels minding their own business.

    Donaghy is just odd enough, spelled differently enough from other names sounding similar it will stick. To “pull a Donaghy” will come to mean letting a vice, like gambling, get the better of you so much you will risk a well-paying and respected job to satisfy that vice. Just like burning your face in a crack-pipe explosion came to be a “Pryor” or getting caught with a corked bat is tagged a “Sosa” or getting busted with a Hollywood hooker is known as a “Hugh Grant.” These names, maybe called “malenoms” with their new meanings will be part of the lexicon.

    We imagine a future Florida scene where all the nefarious malenomed scoundrels are gathered around a horseshoe pit playing shoes. Michael Vick, O.J. and Sammy Sosa are tossing while Tim Donaghy refs the match.  O.J. tosses first, lands eight inches away, flashes some tooth and sits down. Vick tosses second, hurls a fast, hard shoe and sticks it 6” away. Sammy’s toss hits the stake and breaks. Cork leaks out. Vick and O.J. jump up and put their grills in Sosa’s face saying “You corked the shoe, didn’t you? Donaghy, run him.” Sosa picks up his broken horseshoe and swipes it at Vick. Vick, quick thinking, pulls a pit bull from under his shoulder pad to block Sammy’s jagged shoe. The horseshoe goes flying where O.J. picks it up, stabs Sosa in the back and then slices Vick through the neck. The pit bull starts at O.J. then sizes up the situation, turns and wimps out of the pit. Donaghy grabs O.J. by the shoulders and says “You won, great, because I had ten grand riding on you. For another twenty, I’ll tell the jury they both came after you.”

    If this happened, it would be a perfect example of the pooch getting Vicked, the horseshoe being Sosa-ed, two famous athletes getting OJ-ed and Donaghy pulling a Donaghy.