{"id":180570,"date":"2025-07-04T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/180570\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T10:00:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T10:00:39","slug":"gideon-espn-lampron-bowling-greens-unique-football-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/180570\/","title":{"rendered":"Gideon ESPN Lampron: Bowling Green’s Unique Football Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pardon the interruption, but there\u2019s a football player<\/a> for Bowling Green State University and his name is ESPN. Well, Gideon ESPN Lampron.<\/p>\n

Gideon, 21, got his middle name \u2014 written in all caps, exactly like the network<\/a> \u2014 when his dad, Marty Lampron, snuck it onto his son\u2019s birth certificate while his wife Jennifer was recovering from giving birth.<\/p>\n

Marty, a massive sports fan, originally wanted to name his son after his favorite basketball player, Larry Bird, which was a non-starter with Jennifer. Instead, he settled for the unique middle name, pronounced ESS-pen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big gamble,\u201d he told the Toledo Blade<\/a> in a story published Wednesday July 2, \u201cbecause I could have ended up liking instruments and being in the band, or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Who
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n Related: Who Is Gunner Stockton? 5 Things to Know About the Georgia Quarterback<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGeorgia quarterback Gunner Stockton has been waiting a lifetime for this moment.\u00a0 Gunner was elevated to the role of starting quarterback for the University of Georgia after quarterback Carson Beck suffered an elbow injury during the SEC Championship Game against Texas on December 7. Beck underwent season-ending surgery and has since declared himself for the [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n

He got lucky. Gideon, a LaGrange, Ohio native, was an Ohio Mr. Football finalist in high school and later an FCS All-American at Dayton University. He transferred to Bowling Green, which plays FBS football<\/a>, after last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t fully realize until I got Gideon\u2019s social security card and there it was, in all caps,\u201d Jennifer said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it. This couldn\u2019t be real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Jennifer had to admit that her son\u2019s name suits him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so proud of him,\u201d Jennifer said. \u201cI told him as he was growing up, if you want to change your name, you can. I told him multiple times. He always said, \u2018I love it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"YesCourtesy of Sean Banks\/Instagram<\/p>\n

The original plan was for Jennifer to pick the first name and the couple agreed on Xavier as a middle name.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut \u2026 he talked about \u2018ESPN\u2019 nonstop,\u201d she said, \u201cand I remember saying, if we have to, at least put a \u2018y\u2019 in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Tim
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n Related: Tim Tebow Through the Years: His Life in Photos<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBetween his time in the NFL and playing minor league baseball and his stint as a sports broadcaster on ESPN, Tim Tebow has really done it all. The athlete started out as a star football player at the University of Florida, where he played under coach Urban Meyer. After a successful collegiate career, Tebow was [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n

She joked that if his name was Espyn, they could at least pretend it was Nordic. ESPN in all caps leaves little room for interpretation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be happy I spelled Gideon correctly,\u201d Marty told Jennifer \u2014 and yes, the two are still married.<\/p>\n

Gideon, for his part, embraced the name. In college, he added his middle name to his X account and Bowling Green has added it to its official roster.<\/p>\n

\t\tThank You!<\/p>\n

You have successfully subscribed.<\/p>\n

Bowling Green is a member of the Mid-American Conference, which has a TV contract with ESPN. That means the Falcons will play most of their games on ESPN\u2019s family of networks or they will stream online via ESPN Plus.<\/p>\n

Come the fall, Gideon is excited for ESPN on ESPN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to MACtion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pardon the interruption, but there\u2019s a football player for Bowling Green State University and his name is ESPN.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[441,3254,7,49,48,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-180570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114794386599380177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}