Delt Nicknames
Charles "Tiger" Edwards
How did you get your nickname?
During the summer after my freshman year in high school, my father retired from the U.S. Air Force. We went from Kansas where he was stationed to live in his hometown of New Orleans.
My parents enrolled me in a local Catholic high school. On the first day, in my first class, shortly after being introduced to the class, one of my classmates started asking me about Kansas. Wanting to fit in, I answered. The nun teaching told us to be quiet. He asked again and I didn’t answer. But, the nun heard the noise and asked me to come to the front of the room. There she whacked my hand a couple of times with a yardstick and told me that it might be okay to talk in Kansas but not here.
After the class, my classmate apologized for getting me in trouble when two football players walked up and said, “Who’s the new kid?” My classmate grabbed my hand and showed them the red stripes from the yardstick and said, “See these stripes? This is Tiger.”
How long did it take before “Tiger” caught on?
Quickly. I realized with everyone calling me Tiger that I was less likely to get bullied. Which I was kind of expecting when I got there. The school had a reputation for the male students being rough and tough. Obviously, that didn’t happen as my classmate started calling me Tiger and others picked it up.
Does everyone call you Tiger?
Yes, in college everyone in the chapter called me Tiger. I lived in the dorm and two soon-to-be charter members had met me and knew that was my nickname. After graduating, I thought it would disappear in a professional setting and [I would be] called Charles or Charlie but someone would show up and call me Tiger. My coworkers used Charlie so they’d look at me funny when they would hear Tiger, except when I started coaching. When I began working at the TV station, my cameraman started tagging me in shots as Charles Tiger Edwards and he said, “You know what? Embrace it, it ain’t going away.”
What do you want people to know about the name Tiger?
A lot of people know me only as Tiger and a lot of people only know me as Charles or Charlie. In Louisiana, people don’t give up on your nickname. Once you have it, they keep calling you by your nickname. Tiger is just a name. While it singles me out as someone other than Charlie and directly identifies me, it really hasn’t defined who I am.
Curtis "Ranger" Smith
How did you get the name Ranger?
When I got out of high school, I joined the military instead of going the college route. I grew up with the pretense of being told I wouldn’t amount to much in my life, so when I joined the military, I decided to go big or go home. I went to a recruiter and told him I wanted to be the best of the best and he said that the Army Rangers were the best. So I told him, “I want to do that.”
He chuckled at me and said, “You realize that not many people can pass the rigorous training to be a Ranger?”
I said, “That’s fine. I’ll do it.” I got a contract for a guaranteed chance to be a Ranger, but I still had to go through the training. I went through all the training and I made it into Ranger battalion. From that point on, when I went home, people started to call me Ranger. All my friends who were not Rangers in the military called me Ranger as well. My community, around my friends, my family, they all call me Ranger now because that’s what I did in the military.
How do you feel about your nickname?
The name Ranger means a lot to me. It’s for those who have served alongside me and those who sacrificed before and after me. So as simple as my story may be, the magnitude of the name carries immense weight and honor.
When people in your circle have called you Ranger for years, is it weird when someone uses your real name?
It is. In fact, I’ve got four kids and my youngest is about to be five and when people ask her what her daddy’s name is, she says, “Ranger.” My kids have heard it so much that they tell people my name is Ranger. I have a small handful of people that precede my military service, they will on occasion call me by my real name in front of people and I look at them and it just sounds strange. My mom, my wife and a few friends still call me Curtis. It causes an awkward reaction out of me now because more people call me Ranger than by my real name now. It’s weird.
What do you want people to know about your nickname?
My name is not about bragging about my service but is that I want to brag about those who are continuing to serve in all roles. It’s really just my way of planting the flag and sticking a memorial up for the remainder of my days on this earth for those who I have had the honor to call brother and sister. Veterans just don’t get as much recognition and love in this country as I feel they deserve. These guys in special operations groups like Rangers, Green Berets, Seals and Delta Force that are out there right now as we speak, doing some really, really dangerous, hazardous things for our country, for me and you.
Derek "Chef" Olive
How did you get the name Chef?
It was when I was a college freshman. I came back to the shelter and one of my brothers, Gary Marlin (Western Kentucky University, 1991), asked me amongst the other brothers where I’d been all day. I said, “I’ve been working down at our cafeteria.” He said, “Well, you’re Chef Our Boy Derek.” So from that one little statement, for the rest of that semester, everybody called me Chef Our Boy Derek. Then it became Chef Derek and then Chef D and then just Chef. So over time it became Chef, but that’s kind of how it started.
How do you feel about your nickname?
I think if it had just gone to just Chef in the beginning, I might’ve been like, “Hey, my name is Derek?” But because it was Chef Our Boy Derek and people used to take the time to say that, I just thought it was kind of funny and I was open to it. There really wasn’t anything different about it. The next thing I knew, it stuck.
When did you lean into the name Chef?
The first time I just said, “Okay, this is what it’s going to be,” was probably right before I graduated. Everyone called me Chef.
As far as outside of my chapter, it started during my second year or third year of advising, when the guys expanded Chef, to Chef Diesel and Chef Daddy. Even now I’ve got another generation of Delts calling me Chef. When I go to a division conference, I might as well say, “I’m Chef,” because there are too many people there calling me Chef, so I don’t want to confuse anyone by saying my real name.
How does it feel knowing the name Chef has lived on?
It’s pretty cool. Gary Marlin, who first called me Chef Our Boy Derek, has since passed but I was able to thank Marlin for giving me the nickname after reconnecting on Facebook a few years ago. I don’t know that people get to do that very often. Most of the time, you get a nickname and it just kind of, just happens but I thanked him because it defined a lot of who I am as a Delt.
Button