Editor’s note: All writing, editing and photography for this story was done by Ryans
It is 4:30 p.m. on a Friday. Beer o’clock. The shout goes up in a Denver bar as a man indeed named Ryan strides through the door. Suddenly, everyone in that bar, roughly 250 people, all begin hollering a rolling chorus of “Hey, Ryan!” Then the entire no-way-the-fire-marshal-would-allow-this crowd breaks into a unified chant. “RY-AN! RY-AN! RY-AN!” You see, they are all named Ryan, too.
New Ryan is steered toward a check-in table, where two men named Ryan ask to see Ryan’s ID to officially prove his Ryan-ness. He does. Thus, he is worthy of entrance. Even if he hadn’t been named Ryan there is a clipboard of forms stacked under a cover sheet that reads “Legally Change Your Name to Ryan,” — legit legal forms drafted by a lawyer Ryan. New Ryan doesn’t need to file a document. Instead, he is allowed admittance once he agrees to wear one of the hundreds of identical “Hello my name is Ryan” name tag stickers, to be affixed to the T-shirt he is handed that announces where all these Ryans will be later that evening: COLORADO RYAN MEETUP 2025.
It is June 20 and Ryans hailing from 31 states and Canadian provinces have assembled in the Mile High City seeking to achieve previously unreached heights for a gathering of humans sharing an identical handle. Their goal: to set a record for the most people of the same first name to attend a sporting event. That event: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.
“You see, Ryan…” explained Ryan the college student from Seattle, surrounded by Ryan of Nashville and Ryan of Amarillo, Texas. “I think that what myself, Ryan, Ryan, and all of the other Ryans are here to do is set the bar. Place that bar where no one of any other name would dare to match it. And setting that bar starts here in this bar.”
The streetside banner that hangs by the front door of that bar reads “Is your name RYAN? Join the Ryan Meetup. No Bryans allowed.” Soon, the Ryan Triumvirate climbs atop the bar inside that bar to welcome their fellow Ryans and instruct them on the proper execution of the Ryan cheers they will use once they have made the 105-degree, sun-baked, three-block walk to Coors Field.
“Let’s go, Ryan!” Clap clap clap-clap-clap
“Give me an ‘R’!”
“The Rockies have four Ryans on their roster and the Diamondbacks have one,” Ryan explains to the room of Ryans, speaking of Colorado third baseman and cleanup hitter Ryan McMahon, rookie shortstop Ryan Ritter, as well as pitchers Ryan Rolison and Ryan Feltner (though Feltner is on the injured list) and Arizona reliever Ryan Thompson.
D-backs righty Ryne Nelson does not count. Ryne is not Ryan. There are rules.
From atop the bar, one of the Ryan Trio has been DM’ing with one of the Rockies Ryans but won’t reveal which one. Not yet. “We cheer for all Ryans. They are our priority!”
The Ryan rah-rah routines are explained by one of three New York Ryans standing above the others. In 2022, Ryan Rose, aka Ryan of New York No. 1, says she had moved to New York and was looking to make new friends. After a couple of failed attempts to create other groups, she decided to lean into her name and printed 10 flyers she posted around her neighborhood. It was a deliberately simple sheet of white paper with the question “Are you a Ryan? No Bryans allowed” and a QR code that led to further information. Ryan Cousins, aka Ryan of New York No. 2, says one day he was leaving his apartment and only a few steps from his front door saw people gathered around a telephone pole. They were reading Ryan Rose’s flyer and one of them turned to him and asked, “Isn’t your name Ryan? You should do this.” When Ryan Cousins showed up, only two other Ryans were there, Ryan Rose and Ryan Le, aka Ryan of New York No. 3, who had been sent a tweet of the flyer from a non-Ryan friend.
From there, the three OG Ryans began posting more Ryan invites around the city and wherever their work travels took them, from Texas to Philly. Then one of Ryan Le’s Manhattan flyers caught the eye of a popular New York social feed, which created buzz within a Ryan Reddit group.
Ryan began a’flyin’.
“All of the sudden,” Ryan Cousins recalls, “We went from Ryan Meetups that had maybe 20 people to having 100, like overnight. And it’s kept growing from there.”
There was a Ryan Rodeo in Austin. A St. Ryan’s Day in Boston. An All-Ryans Game Show in San Diego. They raised enough money in one hour to help a family afford their baby Ryan’s hydrocephalus surgery. And one year ago, they rented out a Manhattan movie theater for a screening of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” attended by 150 Ryans and one Hugh.
“We were hoping Ryan Reynolds might show up,” Cousins confesses. “We did bring in the one Hugh. But we also knew that Hugh Jackman lives in New York and if he had shown up, we would have totally replaced the other Hugh with the movie star Hugh.”
It is now 5:30 p.m. and the Ryans are on the move. A couple dozen Ryans are in a pack, marching toward the entrance of Coors Field. There’s a Denver Ryan, accompanied by another local Ryan, whom he’d just met. It was his Uber driver. “When I got in and realized his name was Ryan, I said I didn’t care if he was at the end of his shift or not, he was parking his car and coming with me.”
There’s a kid in a Rockies jersey with purple “Ryan” lettering across his shoulders, holding hands with a woman whose shirt reads “Ryan’s Mom.” There’s a Ryan in a Kris Bryant Rockies jersey with the “B” and “T” covered with tape so it just reads RYAN. There is a wobbly-walking gentleman in a bowling shirt with a script embroidered “Ryan.” Other shirts say, “Ryan’s Wife,” “Ryan’s Sister,” “I’m With Ryan” and, yes, “F*ck Bryan.” Multiple foursomes of Ryans have no shirts at all, having grabbed the cans of black body paint that were at the bar and slathered R, Y, A or N across their chests. When a “SportsCenter” live report from the pregame festivities attempted to include them, they accidentally but enthusiastically spelled NAYR.
However, on this day the most memorable Ryan was a pregnant woman with a name tag affixed to her belly that informs us she has a Ryan on the way.
It is a reminder of why there are so many Rockies-bound Ryans here in her age group. Millennial and Gen Z Ryans, with some Gen X Ryans, dominate the crowd. According to the Social Security Administration’s database, there isn’t even a blip on their Ryan radar until the 1940s, when the name first cracked their list of the annual top 1,000 baby names. Ryan remained ranked in the triple digits for decades until Ryans ran rampant in the mid-1970s. Ryan peaked in 1991 as the 11th-most-popular name for boys, when 27,534 Ryans were born in the United States. From 1976 through 2009, Ryans rooted themselves in the top 20. Then the Ryan rung of the registry rusted over. In 2024, only 3,892 boy Ryans were birthed, ranking 87th in popularity. They were joined by 399 girl Ryans, rated only 702nd on the female moniker mountain.
“Maybe that’s why we are all so eager to find each other and stick together,” surmised one of the 477 girl Ryans born in 1998, having arrived at the Ryan Meetup from Colorado Springs. “They might call Ryan a dying breed, but clearly, we are very much alive. And maybe we will inspire people to do the right thing and bring more Ryans into this world. By pregnancy or paperwork.”
Ah yes, that paperwork. She and the other Ryans are all buzzing about the one guy who accepted the Ryan Meetup offer to convert him into one of them. To another round of “Ry-an! Ry-an!” encouragement, he held up the name change form he had just filled out, ready to be taken to a local judge. His given name was Payton Thatcher. But here, only 2½ miles from where Peyton Manning once led the Broncos to a Super Bowl championship season, this Denver-living Payton has started the process of changing his name to Ryan. Why? On the line of the form that says: “I am requesting a name change for the following reason(s)” the newest Ryan simply wrote “Because Ryans are awesome.”
As the Ryan Revue marches its way to the front steps of Coors Field, they are greeted by one of the six Ryans who work in the Rockies’ front office. He is there to escort a group of them to the field for the ceremonial first pitch, where they will be joined by Ryan Harris, one of the offensive linemen who blocked for Manning during that Super Bowl run.
It was those Ryans on the Rockies staff who reached out to the Ryan Meetup after spotting their efforts on social media. Said Cousins: “We had done a Ryan Meetup at a Boston Red Sox game and had a decent number, but it’s hard to get a lot of Red Sox tickets. The Rockies don’t have that problem, currently.”
That’s what happens when it’s late June and you are a franchise that is losing ball games at a historically terrible rate. The kind of season where a big league club is looking for any sort of spark to get its ballpark cranking and save its sinking ship before it hits the bottom of the South Platte River.
Rockies Ryan watches the Ryans take a photo in front of the ballpark and then announces, “Ryan, come with me!” And they do.
It is now 6:30 p.m. and the five sections located in the lower-level center-field section of Coors Field are reverberating with the roar of Ryans. Two of those sections are almost exclusively Ryan’d. The Ryans get revved up when the Diamondbacks relievers walk across the outfield to the bullpen and Ryan Thompson gives them a point. They are whipped into a full Ryan ruckus when on the 8,369-square-foot Rockies Vision scoreboard, the massive face of former Colorado outfielder Ryan Spilborghs appears like the Wizard of Oz, points down into the Ryan sections and leads them in a “Ry-an! Ry-an!” cheer. There are so many Ryan Meetup white T-shirts in center field that one Ryan wonders aloud if it might keep the hitters standing 415 feet way from being able to clearly see pitches. Then he adds, “But I don’t really care as long as the two Ryans who will be hitting can see. I’m not sure how I will react when they are at bat.”
Ryan’s and the Ryans’ reaction comes precisely 30 minutes later, when Ryan McMahon’s name is announced and the 6-foot-2 third baseman, whose 11 homers have been one of the lone bright spots during this dismal season, approaches the plate. The Ryans lose their collective “Ry-an! Ry-an! Ry-an!” mind. When he starts with a 1-0 count but then strikes out on three straight pitches, they give a polite “You’ll get ’em next time” clap. Then, as they sit down, a Ryan among them shouts, “That umpire must be a Bryan!” They are cheering again.
(Side note: Unless you are a Ryan, you can’t possibly understand the animosity toward Bryan. Why? Imagine being called the wrong name on a weekly, if not daily, basis. For Ryans, the Bryan confusion makes for so many long first days of school, so many misspelled coffee shop cups, even diplomas and driver licenses that have to be sent back. Is it a bit much to serve a F*ck Brian Belgian White Ale as they did at the brewery on this day? Probably. But now maybe you understand where it comes from.)
One inning later, Ryan Ritter’s name booms from the same scoreboard that has spent every between-inning break showing the in-stadium contests, every participant being a Ryan plucked from the meetup. The rookie is barely two weeks removed from making his big league debut. He has yet to record an extra-base hit.
Until now.
When Ryan Ritter slides into second with a double, he turns and points toward the Ryans in center field. As the Ryans dance and scream and hug, Ryan Cousins finally reveals to the Ryans around him that the Rockies Ryan he had been DM’ing with all day was the one now standing on second. Five pitches later, Ritter is crossing home plate for Colorado’s first run of the night.
It is now 7:30 p.m. and Ryan McMahon is back at the plate. It is the bottom of the fourth and the Rockies are trailing 6-1. What happens next is difficult to fully describe. McMahon shows patience as he takes a first-strike fastball and then lays off an 85 mph changeup out of the zone from Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen. Then, another changeup. It is also 85 mph but most definitely in the strike zone. At least it was. Moments later it lands in the right-field stands, 467 feet away, Ryan McMahon’s 12th home run of the season.
A Ryan and his Ryan-loving wife, dressed in Denver Nuggets and Rockies jerseys with “Realtor Ryan” sewn onto the shoulders, kiss. A Ryan in a 1986 Nolan Ryan jersey high-fives a woman holding a sign that says “Ryan, Call Me” complete with her phone number. A kid Ryan in a Ryan Meetup T-shirt is crying. Pretty sure the grown-up Ryan next to him accidentally stepped on his toes. He is also crying.
“It was so cool, man,” McMahon would say later. “They were loud. They were rowdy. It was good energy. So, it was cool.” And are the Ryans the reason you went yard, Ryan? “It sure didn’t hurt. Whenever the Ryans want to come back, let them know that this Ryan is all for it.”
So is Ritter, who wound up 2-4 and accounted for three of the Rockies’ runs, with two of his own and an RBI.
“Yeah, it was me they were DM’ing on Instagram,” the Ryan wearing No. 8 confessed later that night. “They were acknowledging me, McMahon, Rolison, it was fun.”
It is 9:30 p.m. and perhaps there has been a little too much fun. The last Ryans standing have found their way to Section 160. Few are actually standing. The usher has given up trying to check and see if everyone is in their correct seats, having picked up a “Hello my name is … Ryan” name tag and stuck it just above his official stadium name tag that reads Deandre. The R-Y-A-N boys are once again standing in NAYR formation, the black body paint now sweat-smeared into more of a M-A-V-P. At least three Ryans are asleep. An award has been given to a South Florida Ryan, determined to be the Ryan who traveled the farthest to be with other Ryans. A baseball is being passed from Ryan to Ryan, who handle it with reverence as if it were fine gemstone delivered by Ryan Diamonds (that’s a real place in Los Angeles). It is the ball Ryan McMahon deposited in the stands, retrieved by a Ryan Meetup member who offered the person who caught it $40 and a free beer.
The last burst of Ryan rowdiness rolled through Coors Field a half-hour earlier. That’s when a Ryan ran down to the front row of the meetup sections and announced, “Hey Ryan, it’s time for a Congo line!” Ryan, of course, meant a conga line. And after that line of Ryans had completed a “Let’s go Ry-an!” lap of the stadium, many Ryans went not so quietly into the good Colorado night.
By the time the game ended with, fittingly but cruelly, a Ryan McMahon strikeout, the final official tally of the Ryan Meetup had been rounded up and rounded off. The official Ryan count per Ryan Cousins was 481, based on tickets sold to Ryans. But Rockies estimates were higher, in the 700 range. It wasn’t enough to break the record for same-name gatherings. That still apparently belongs to a group of 2,325 Ivans who amassed in 2017. But until someone of a non-Ryan name can prove otherwise, the Ryan Meetup is claiming the mark for its original goal, the most to pack a singular sporting event. Until they do it again.
It is 10:30 p.m. and the Ryan Meetup core planning group is back at the bar where it started eight hours earlier … plus one. Ryan Ritter is now among them and the shortstop has traded in his Rockies jersey for a white Ryan Meetup T-shirt. The next evening, Ryan McMahon will take pregame warmups while wearing his.
There are laughs. There are smiles. There are a few more “Ry-an! Ry-an!” chants and a few more F*ck Brian beers consumed. Because another goal has also been reached. It’s the problem that Ryan Rose went searching to solve three years ago. She wanted to find some friends. Now Ryan — and all these other Ryans — have more friends than they can accurately count.
“Here we are, in this time where everyone and everything seems to be working to divide us,” a local Denver Ryan said during the game, identifying himself as a psychologist. Dr. Ryan, like dozens of other Ryans, had come from his seats elsewhere in Coors Field to see if as a Ryan he might get in on this Ryan-ing. “Here’s a bunch of people from all over, probably from very different backgrounds and political views, and they have found the simplest common ground to make them forget all of the things that might normally prevent them from being together like this.”
“I mean it when I say the Ryan Meetup has changed my life,” explains Ryan Fisher of South Florida, a member of the committee. “A year or so ago, I was struggling to find my identity. As we get older, it’s hard to meet new people and make new friends and make new friend groups … and this is the most random thing that just has been the coolest thing. When I talk to people about it, they often tell me how they can hear the joy in my voice. And that means a lot to me.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida has offensive help on the way with a freshman receiver who just might make a difference against No. 9 Texas on Saturday.
Dallas Wilson is practicing for the first time since injuring his left foot in training camp and is scheduled to make his collegiate debut against the Longhorns, coach Billy Napier said Monday.
Napier called Wilson’s availability “a big deal.”
“Three good days of work last week, and I thought he handled the load well,” Napier said. “He feels really good. So far, so good.”
Wilson, a 6-foot-3, 213-pound newcomer from Tampa, was the star of Florida’s spring game in April. He caught 10 passes for 195 yards and two touchdowns, and all indications in fall practice pointed to it not being a fluke.
But Wilson injured his foot late in camp, spent weeks in a protective boot and watched from afar as the Gators (1-3, 0-1 SEC) struggled to move the ball and find the end zone. Florida scored 16, 10 and 7 points, respectively, in consecutive losses to South Florida, LSU and Miami, raising speculation about Napier’s future in Gainesville.
Quarterback DJ Lagway has been the focus of the team’s offensive woes. The sophomore who went 6-1 as a starter last season missed most of the year dealing with injuries and looked rusty when the season began.
Although Lagway’s mechanics seemed improved in the team’s 26-7 setback at Miami on Sept. 20, his offensive line got manhandled and allowed way too much pressure for anyone to notice. Lagway completed 12 of 23 passes for 61 yards against the Hurricanes.
Napier used the off week to get Lagway more live-action reps in hopes of getting him “caught up.” But he also reiterated the need to “play better around him.”
“Each position group needs to step up,” Napier said. “More detail, eliminate errors, eliminate penalties, whatever the case may be. I just think more detail and better overall play around him. And, obviously, he needs to continue to get back closer to being himself.”
Dallas Wilson has been unable to help — until now. The Gators are confident he will change the narrative against the No. 1 scoring defense in the SEC.
“Just having him out is going to be amazing for us,” Lagway said. “His ability to go deep, his ability to make plays underneath and be able to make miraculous plays with the ball in his hands, it’s going to be great to have him back.”
SEC Network host Paul Finebaum said Monday that he would consider leaving ESPN to run for the U.S. Senate, representing Alabama.
The 70-year-old Finebaum said during a recent interview with Outkick that he’d run as a Republican to fill the seat vacated by former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, who has said he’ll run for Alabama governor in the 2026 elections. Tuberville’s current Senate term ends in 2027.
The qualifying deadline to run for Senate is Jan. 26, 2026. Finebaum said he would likely have to leave his hosting and analyst duties if he decided to run. He told Outkick he’d make a decision within the next 30-45 days.
Finebaum said he hadn’t seriously considered politics, but the assassination of Charlie Kirk was the impetus to give a run at politics further thought. He noted that he had received a “text” from “one or two people in Washington” gauging his interest in politics.
“[It was] something I never thought about before,” Finebaum told Outkick.
Finebaum is currently registered as a Republican in North Carolina, where he works for the SEC Network. He told Outkick he recently moved to Alabama, where he hosted a radio show for years, and would re-register there.
Finebaum hosted radio shows in Alabama for almost 30 years before joining ESPN and the SEC Network. He started his media career as a newspaper writer and columnist.
“Alabama has always been the place I’ve felt the most welcome, that I’ve cared the most about the people,” he said. “I’ve spoken to people from Alabama for 35 years, and I feel there is a connection that is hard to explain.”
Bobby Petrino has fired three defensive assistants just one day after being named interim head coach at Arkansas as part of an overhaul of the Razorbacks’ coaching staff.
Petrino dismissed defensive coordinator Travis Williams, defensive line coach Deke Adams and defensive assistant Marcus Woodson in the latest moves after being appointed interim coach for the rest of the season to replace Sam Pittman, who was fired Sunday following five-plus seasons as Arkansas’ head coach.
“I just felt like how we performed on Saturday gave me an indication that maybe Sam had lost the team a little bit because they generally had played really hard for him throughout his tenure,” Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said of the move, which came on the heels of a 56-13 home loss to Notre Dame.
Petrino, 64, returned to Arkansas in 2023 as offensive coordinator after serving in a number of jobs. In four years as the Razorbacks’ head coach, he went 34-17, including consecutive seasons with double-digit victories in 2010 and 2011.
“Coach Petrino, as we met yesterday, he accepted this opportunity with the understanding that he also wanted an opportunity to formally be a candidate for our head coaching position, and he will have that opportunity, but we’ll also subsequently run a search for our next head coach at the same time,” Yurachek said.
Pittman’s dismissal, Petrino’s temporary promotion and the defensive assistant dismissals weren’t the only changes. Chris Wilson was named the team’s interim defensive coordinator.
Petrino had high praise for Wilson, who was in his first year with the Razorbacks as an assistant defensive line coach.
“My experience [with Wilson] goes way back to having to battle against him when he had all the great defensive linemen at Mississippi State,” Petrino said. “Very, very impressed with what he’s done throughout his career. Guy’s got a Super Bowl ring. He brings a lot of credibility into the room.”
Several defensive players posted cryptic messages on social media following the firing of Williams, who had served as the team’s defensive coordinator since 2023. Yurachek and Petrino encouraged players to welcome change amid a 2-3 start to the season.
“The No. 1 thing is, you have to get used to change. You know, your whole life there’s going to be change. So how we handle that, our attitude on how we handle that, will determine how quickly we improve,” Petrino said.
Petrino was involved in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in April 2012 that left him with four broken ribs. At first, he said he was riding alone, but a police report revealed a woman was riding with him. The woman turned out to be a former Arkansas athlete who was in a romantic relationship with the married Petrino. The coach had given her a job in the football program and a $20,000 gift.
Petrino was fired by then-athletic director Jeff Long for misleading his bosses about what happened with the accident and his relationship with the football staffer.
Pittman, 63, went 32-34 with the Razorbacks.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
