Matt Stooks

The only thing worse than hearing Mitch Holthus call Larry Johnson “The Centaur” is KC Star sports hack Jeffrey Flanagan quoting Mitch calling Larry “The Centaur.”

Every Monday, Flanaboner will print sound bytes from the Chiefs’ TV and radio broadcasts. Today’s was especially annoying.

“And he got his centaur tail up the field.”

| Holthus, after Larry Johnson got a first down.

JF: Was the centaur’s big day a breakout or more just a result of the Bengals’ awful defense? The centaur showed his selfishness with his delay-of-game penalty late in the contest and his carelessness by fumbling into the end zone earlier.

Enough! No normal person’s gonna start calling LJ “The Centaur.” Flanagan called him “Centaur” twice in this column. Mitch must’ve promised him a discount on a Kia at Briggs in exchange for propagating the use of “Centaur.”

You can tell Mitch really has a hard on for the nickname in this article.

“It just came to me one day as I was thinking about his running style,” Holthus said.

“He runs sort of half-man, half-beast, and I started to think of Greek mythology and that was it — the centaur.”

It’s just beautiful how Mitch poetically ties Chiefs fans’ love of football and Greek mythology together.

The nickname makes sense because of horses’ complete inability to block.

Bonus note to KC Star Sports Editors: Your style book should capitalize “Centaur.” A lowercase nickname makes no sense.