Bumper Pool Is No Joke

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Bumper Pool Is No Joke

Bumper Pool - inside linebacker recruit from Allen, Texas
Bumper Pool – inside linebacker recruit from Allen, Texas
Photo: Greg Poole/Bulldawg Illustrated

 
 
A young man has to be tough to play inside linebacker. With a name like Bumper Pool one might have plenty of opportunities to toughen up in elementary school, right? That is not a nickname, by the way. Bumper James Morris Pool is the name on his birth certificate.

Bumper had problems with the occasional grade-school teacher.
 
 

“They always thought I was the kid messing around in class,” he said. “I would tell them, ‘No, that’s my real name,’ but they never believed me at first. Whenever I’d go out, and I’m around people I don’t know, I’d get it a lot.
 
“The people I’m around, they don’t ask anymore. I know a lot of my friends when they first met me, will tell their parents, ‘I met a kid named Bumper.'”
 
“I always said if I had a son, his first name would be Bumper,” Jeff Pool said. “It kind of fit as a football name, and when his grandparents were OK with that, I knew we had something.”
 
“I don’t get tired of it,” Bumper added. “It’s a football name. It’s a conversation starter, too.”

 
 
Bumper’s play is no joke. The 2018 4-star prospect has been offered by both Alabama and Arkansas. Will UGA bank in an offer after evaluating him in Athens?
 
 
http://www.hudl.com/video/3/3918167/5721cef09a90ec554096f054
 
 
 
 

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Greg is closing in on 15 years writing about and photographing UGA sports. While often wrong and/or out of focus, it has been a long, strange trip full of fun and new friends.