The Colorado Buffaloes opened their 2026 college football campaign against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta on Thursday night.
The game featured a Georgia Tech 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, an improbable Colorado comeback, and a blocked field goal as time expired.
Before walking away with the euphoric victory, Colorado linebacker Gideon ESPN Lampron caught everyone’s attention. Midway through the fourth quarter, Lampron made a routine tackle. That wasn’t the interesting part.
“Gideon ESPN Lampron on the tackle. And yes, No. 44’s middle name is ESPN. His dad did it without telling his mom.” pic.twitter.com/s25co5aC56
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 4, 2026
“Gideon ESPN Lampron on the tackle, and yes, No. 44’s middle name is ESPN,” ESPN play-by-play announcer Matt Barrie said on the ESPN broadcast. “His dad did it without telling his mom.”
“How ’bout that?!” color analyst Chase Daniel chimed in. “He told us that story. They’re in the hospital, they’re signing the birth certificate, and he erased his middle name.”
“And he wrote [ESPN] on there,” Barrie said.
“We thought it was [pronounced] Espen!” Daniel said, and then Barrie showed off with a midseason form, masterclass segue: “It wasn’t.” Brief pause. “But it is a big third down.”
College football is back, baby.
In June 2004, the Associated Press reported that “at least three children in the United States” were known to be named after ESPN. Lampron was born in 2004.
“He’s totally obsessed with sports and played everything he could growing up,” Lampron told TODAY about his father, Marty, last October. “So I guess my mom was really out of it, and he just took the opportunity to sneak it in and give me the middle name ESPN.”
“She was sleeping, and I went ahead and wrote down ESPN,” Marty added. “The nurse looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Then the doctor walked in and said, ‘Your wife is going to kill you.’ And I told him, ‘She’ll get over it!'”
Lampron’s mother, Jennifer, told TODAY that she was not happy when she discovered her son’s middle name because she and Marty had previously agreed on Xavier, and she had shot down Marty’s dream of making ESPN into a middle name.
“I’m so proud of him,” Jennifer Lampron told The Blade in July 2025. “I told him as he was growing up, if you want to change your name, you can. I told him multiple times. He always said, ‘I love it.’ And I will say, it does suit him.”
Lampron starred at Keystone High School in LaGrange, Ohio, becoming a finalist for Ohio Mr. Football. He began his collegiate football career at Dayton (2022-24) before transferring to Bowling Green for last season, according to his official player bio.
Lampron committed to Colorado in January, much to head coach Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ delight, and he won his first game of his final collegiate season on ESPN. Just like Marty dreamt it.
About Megan Armstrong
Since first getting published as a student by the Kansas City Star in 2013, Megan Armstrong has gone wherever curiosity and stories have taken her, specializing in sports, media, music, and culture coverage. She also has an extensive background in interviewing and profiling public figures. Her work has appeared in Billboard, Boardroom, Bleacher Report, Esquire, GQ, GRAMMY.com, NYLON, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, The Hollywood Reporter, UPROXX, and elsewhere.