ESPN.com - Part II: The Year in Sex & Sports, 2003

ESPN.com: Page 2

Thursday, December 18, 2003
Updated: December 24, 11:58 AM ET
Part II: The Year in Sex & Sports, 2003

By Jeff Merron
Page 2 staff

If you missed Part 1 of Page 2's "Year in Sex & Sports", well, you've got six months worth of racy stories to catch up on.

Here's a look at the sexiest sports stories from the final half of 2003:

July


	Searching for that perfect wave is a lot like searching for that perfect ...

Not a surfer? Maybe you're missing something ...
The Australian surfing magazine Tracks surveys 1,000 surfers. Two-thirds of the respondents say they like surfing better than sex.

Ditka tackles "men's health," lets euphemisms run wild
Pharmaceutical giants Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline hire Mike Ditka to pitch Levitra, an impotence drug that's a direct competitor with Viagra. The companies also announce that they've reached an NFL sponsorship deal.

While the drug is all about curing erectile dysfunction (or "E.D." for the squeamish), the marketing campaign is enveloped in a program the companies call "Tackling Men's Health." Ditka says, "We're raising awareness about diabetes, cardiovascular health, mental health, prostate health and sexual health."

"We really think we've scored a touchdown with Ditka," Bayer marketing VP Nancy Bryan says.

The Kobe case
It all started here. You can read more about it here.

Does it count if you wear a tutu?
Serial streaker Mark Roberts performs his first underwater streak at the World Synchronized Swimming Finals in Barcelona, but his personal Web site reports he entered the pool wearing a pink tutu. There's no word that the tutu came off, so we're not sure if it counts.

The French. So sophisticated.
The UK Jockey Club has its knickers all in a twist because, it appears, it must allow a French horse named "Big T---" to run in England. There are rules that prohibit owners from registering horses under such names -- in the U.K. and in France (and in the U.S., as well). But the horse is French-owned and registered by France Galop, the official authority in that country, which approved the name.

"We were having a family lunch and were trying to come up with ideas," the horse's trainer tells The (UK) Sun. "My son suggested Gros Nichons, but that wouldn't have got past France Galop, so we decided on the English equivalent."

Sue Bird's Summer


	Hmm .. that sure isn't a Seattle Storm jersey.

The WNBA, in an effort to attract 18-to-35-year-old males, rolls out a marketing campaign -- "This is who I am" -- that features some players in sexy poses. Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird, for example, wears a slinky, low-cut dress and says, "I am not as sweet as you think I am."

Could be. Bird poses in the summer of issue of Dime magazine wearing heels and an Allen Iverson jersey -- and nothing else.

Later, Bird bets Seattle sports-radio host Mitch Levy that her assists-to-turnover ratio will be better than 2-to-1. If Bird wins, Levy will have to buy Storm season tickets. If she loses, Levy will give her an on-air spanking while she yells, "Harder, daddy, harder."

Wait -- it's more complicated than that. The Seattle Times even got it wrong, initially, and posted this correction: "There are actually two bets: If Bird has a better than 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio at the end of the season, Levy has to buy 2004 Storm season tickets. If she fails, he gets to spank her." An additional bet that columnist Steve Kelley described was made between the two at a later date: If she has a better than 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, Levy has to buy season tickets but is allowed to buy cheaper ones. If Bird loses, she still gets spanked but also has to say "Harder, daddy, harder" while receiving the punishment."

Thanks for the clarification.

Storm coach Anne Donovan says she talked to Bird about the bets. "We're always trying different avenues to get men into the games. This probably isn't the best avenue. I'm not saying I agree with it. For myself it's not the way to go."

Bird soon cancels the wagers and apologizes, saying she did it "as a good-natured way to draw the radio talent and listeners to Storm games."

Jockey Club spokesman John Maxse admits to some kind of foul up. "There is a reciprocal agreement whereby the French officials -- France Galop -- check our names and we check theirs. But we never saw Big T---. However, now it has run once, I suspect it would be impossible to get it changed."

Derek Thompson, who calls races for Britain's Channel 4, tells the Sun, "I'm not quite sure how we'd do this. I think I'd either have to say it quickly or refer to the jockey handling it well or sticking his chest out. We certainly wouldn't get away with saying, 'Big T--- is bouncing over the line' at 3 p.m. on national TV."

And when you lose a hand, you have to put something on?
The North American Nude Bikers club holds its first rally, at a nudist park in Tennessee. One of the events: a "poker run," in which the (almost) naked riders draw cards at stops along the way. The stakes of the game and the destination go unreported.

August

Just like real life. Yeah, right. New video game Street Racing Syndicate combines high-performance cars and high-maintenance women. You can win the women -- including Angelica Bridges and other Playboy models -- but only if you forfeit the race in order to take them out for a night on the town. So how do you, you know, win the game? Playgirl Sasha Singleton explains: "Successful drivers can gain respect and power by trading ladies around their crew. It's just like real life, because boys are shady."

One video-game site's preview sums up this critical strategic aspect: "If you're short on cash, it's possible to use any of your girlfriends as the ante to enter a race. You'll even be able to win more girlfriends in this manner."

Yep, that's always worked for us in the real world.

They're luckier than you know, buddy
Playboy's "Casual Sex Survey" tackles the question of how guys handle "the morning after." One single male, aged 25, says, "I tend to avoid 'morning afters' by taking off or tossing them out before sunrise. If they hang around, I make breakfast and get rid of them as soon as possible, particularly during football season."

Right. You wouldn't want a beautiful, sexy woman who desires you to interrupt football -- unless it's halftime ... when she's lingerie-clad, on TV, and way, way out of your league.

He won on a rental?
It's the new, anything-goes Russia, and the newest sport is & rubber sex doll rafting. Contestants in St. Peterburg ride the Vuoksa River rapids on dolls named "Mary and her Poppins," "Speedy Sterlet," and such. Both men and (real) women compete.

The winner, who, as the rules state, wears a helmet and life vest and remains sober between the semis and the finals, is Alexander Korolev. According to the race summary, Korolev's winning craft is a rental.

A concept we don't want to think too much about.

Whatever it takes
Women's soccer still faces an uphill battle in Germany and other European countries, which may be why Teutschenthal will be wearing a red and gray jersey emblazoned with the slogan of local brothel: "X-Carree: Always Worth a Visit".

The brothel is owned by a real-estate agency. According to the amateur team's coach, "The women have no problem with it."

Bum deal for handballers
Female athletes aren't the only ones desperate for funding. SG Flensburg-Handewitt, a men's handball team in the German national league, will be sponsored by a pornographic Website, chosen, according to the company's manager, "because it is a very erotic team. They're young, good-looking players and very successful -- a perfect fit."

The team features the league's leading scorer, Lars Christiansen, who's totally on-board with a URL emblazoned on his butt. "It's great that it's on our bottoms -- that's where the women look first," he says.


	For Jon Gruden, winning the Super Bowl is better than the Notre Dame fight song.

September

He will ne'er forget her & And will cheer her ever
Bucs head coach Jon Gruden, interviewed in the Sept. issue of Playboy, reveals that he lost his virginity at age 17, in South Bend, Indiana. "I lost my virginity to the Notre Dame fight song," Gruden says. "There was a band?" asks Playboy. "No, not even music," Gruden replies. "But it was in my mind."

Now that's single-minded devotion to football.

Does a nude watch still tick?
Former rugby player Marc Ellis, on his TV show Lion Red Sportscafe, offers anyone who streaks at a New Zealand rugby match a prize -- $1,000 for men and $2,000 for women. A local newspaper reports, under the headline, "Nude watch at stadium," that due to increased security and predicted bad weather, it's unlikely there will be any prize winners.

A few days before, as the Christchurch (New Zealand) Press reported, two streakers came close to meeting the challenge. They were arrested at another rugby match, after being caught by security before making it onto the field. The Christchurch police were not amused. "The stupidity of such acts, especially at a major sporting fixture, can have an influence on the outcome of the game," said Senior Sargeant Murray Hodson.

We're still trying to figure out how.

Umm, thanks for testing the new pitch, mate
East End Park, the home stadium of the Dunfermline (Scotland) soccer club, is celebrated like it's never been before -- the new field, made of XL Turf, is billed by its inventor as "perfect pure artificial grass." Dunfermline and Hibernian play to a 0-0 draw before 10,000 fans, a larger-than-usual media mob and some soccer dignitaries, most there to celebrate the new surface.

The soccer's fine, but the real test comes early in the second half, when a streaker, described by Glasgow Herald reporter Graham Spiers as "possibly in his mid-20s, of slim build" runs across the field, then dives head-first, slip-sliding his way to what may be the biggest self-inflicted raspberry in human history. "The pain you imagined this might inflict on the lower, more sensitive areas momentarily made the eyes water," writes Spiers.

Spiers, in the tradition of the great "you-are-there" journalists, is elaborate in describing the young fellow, and we're sure this dig inflicted more pain than the raspberry: "In the parlance of football, [he had] a size of tackle which wouldn't normally be able to spot even with the aid of the Hubble Telescope."

Ouch.

But how would you boil a 10-foot pole?
In an auction of memorabilia from the favorite athlete hangout Gold Club in Atlanta, a gold-colored pole that the strippers cavorted with sold for $1,750, bought by a couple who said it was bound for their bedroom.

Neither Andruw Jones nor Patrick Ewing, who testified in the infamous Gold Club Trial, are present at the government-sponsored auction.

One of the auction's attendees, Tonya Boler, tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she'll probably bid on an empty champagne bottle, but wishes she had the money to score the pole -- and clean it. "It would be an interesting addition to someone's home," she says. "It's kind of dirty-looking. You might want to sterilize it first."


	Yes, the Lingerie Bowl will need some referees.

Spanking butts at the Lingerie Bowl
Horizon Productions holds a "launch party" at the Argyle Hotel in West Hollywood for the 2004 "Lingerie Bowl," a pay-per-view event that will take place at halftime of the Super Bowl on Feb. 1. Lawrence Taylor (nah, he's not "L.T." anymore) and Eric Dickerson will coach the opposing teams. (Read Page 2's preview of the event here.)

The game will be seven-on-seven, tackle, at a real stadium with real fans in the stands. Angie Everhart and Nikki Ziering will QB the 13-woman squads -- Team Euphoria and Team Dream.

Ziering is pumped, she tells ign.com: "Everybody's very intrigued about this concept of hot chicks in lingerie playing full contact football. ... We're gonna go into practice this Fall. And so I have this fantasy. ... I wanna live the whole experience. I wanna spank their butts in the locker room, drink Gatorade. And I wanna win. And I wanna make that, you know, winning touchdown and have my team like, pick me up and carry me and get sprayed with champagne and they play that song you know, 'We are the Champions.'"

Note to bosses: We'd like to, you know, be assigned to cover that game.

October

How to score at midfield
Talk about the greatest self-serving ritual: At Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., students are "required" to do three things before graduation. One of them is to have sex on the 50-yard line of the football field, reports Playboy. "We see them out there going at it every day," says one alum. Union College QB Ryan Perry says, "At the end of the year, there is literally a line waiting to get on the 50-yard line so everyone can accomplish the task before graduation."

We find the math a little puzzling on this one, though. Union College has 2,000 students, some of whom presumably couple with each other. So, there are 500 or so seniors, they're out there every day, and there's a line at the end of the year ?

The only thing we can think of is this: some students are using a trick play, pulling out the line, "Honey, if we don't do this, I don't graduate" many times over.

Lurid sex tales from England
When a 17-year-old girl alleges she was gang-raped by seven English Premiership League footballers at a London hotel, newspapers go wild with stories about easy and rampant group sex among soccer stars. Jim White, in the London Daily Telegraph reports on a "party organizer" who says that group sex, also known as "roasting," is just part of the routine for footballers. The women make it known they want action, writes White. "On the rare occasions I have been in a nightclub at the same time as footballers, it has been impossible to miss the frisson that chills the air the moment they walk in, the way every eye is drawn to them and their wallets," he writes. "And the way women quickly invade their private space." The Straits Times (Singapore) quotes a London club manager, who says soccer players "are bigger spenders than businessmen, pop stars and movie actors and they think nothing of buying Kristal champagne for �430 a bottle, with less than six glasses to a bottle. They come dressed in Gucci suits and wearing Rolex watches and of course they are looking for action with girls. Every Saturday night, we have stunning-looking teenagers and girls in their 20s who come to our club just to meet footballers. They know the stars are big spenders, out for a good time -- and fit as a fiddle. Sex is on the mind of most of them, but they are consenting adults." One teen, who says she's a part-time model, tells the Times, "I have been to bed with four different footballers -- and you would recognize the names of all of them."

Lurid sex tales from England

When a 17-year-old girl alleges she was gang-raped by seven English Premiership League footballers at a London hotel, newspapers go wild with stories about easy and rampant group sex among soccer stars.

Jim White, in the London Daily Telegraph reports on a "party organizer" who says that group sex, also known as "roasting," is just part of the routine for footballers. The women make it known they want action, writes White.

"On the rare occasions I have been in a nightclub at the same time as footballers, it has been impossible to miss the frisson that chills the air the moment they walk in, the way every eye is drawn to them and their wallets," he writes. "And the way women quickly invade their private space."

The Straits Times (Singapore) quotes a London club manager, who says soccer players "are bigger spenders than businessmen, pop stars and movie actors and they think nothing of buying Kristal champagne for �430 a bottle, with less than six glasses to a bottle. They come dressed in Gucci suits and wearing Rolex watches and of course they are looking for action with girls. Every Saturday night, we have stunning-looking teenagers and girls in their 20s who come to our club just to meet footballers. They know the stars are big spenders, out for a good time -- and fit as a fiddle. Sex is on the mind of most of them, but they are consenting adults."

One teen, who says she's a part-time model, tells the Times, "I have been to bed with four different footballers -- and you would recognize the names of all of them."

Just be careful with that javelin
Dutch athletes pose nude for the imaginatively named Dutch Sport Girls Website, in an effort to raise money to train in warmer climes and hire coaches. For just $19.95, visitors can not only glimpse tasteful photos of shot putters, javelin throwers, pole vaulters, sprinters, and middle-distance runners posing in sports settings (think pole-vault pits and tracks), but also help them "raise money for achieving a professional career outside Holland." Among the women is Frenke Bolt, 23, the Netherlands' high-jump champ.

One of the site's creators, Joop Tervoort, explains further. "Most athletes travel to Spain, France, Portugal, South Africa or the Canary Islands early in the year to prepare for the new season in the sun," he tells Reuters. "This year subsidies to the Royal Dutch Athletics Union were cut heavily and many athletes are still students who have a hard time scraping together extra money."

The site receives 2 million visitors on one of its first days, but there's no report on progress toward the goal of raising about $1,000 for each athlete.

Hospitality, Aussie style
Australia, host of the Rugby World Cup, goes all out to, umm, please foreign fans -- an estimated 40,000 or so -- during the tourney. It's reported that brothels are recruiting part-timers, including doctors and lawyers, as so-called ISP's, or individual service providers. (We are not making this up.)

Stephenson: Fewer Asians, more sex could cure LPGA's ills
Jan Stephenson, 51, a winner of 16 LPGA tour events during her heyday (1976-87), tells Golf Magazine that the LPGA is suffering because there are too many Asians (she suggests a quota), and because the Association isn't promoting sex appeal as much as it should. "The women are not the best athletes -- the men are," she says. "Whether we like it or not, we have to promote sex, because sex sells. I think you have to shock."

What shocks much more than the comments about sex is what Stephenson says about quotas.

The real Red Sox curse
On Bridgeport (Conn.) radio show "Chaz and AJ in the Morning," Bridgeport Bluefish GM Charlie Dowd promises if the Red Sox win the World Series, he'll pose in bikini undies and let the radio guys post photos of him, thusly clad, on the Web. Seizing the "can you top this" opportunity, Red Sox fan and WTIC-TV Hartford sports anchor Tony Terzi promises Chaz and AJ that he'll pose nude.

This series of gambles is reported by Chris Elsberry, a sports columnist for the Connecticut Post, who can't help but express his utter revulsion. "Charlie? A thong? Are you kidding? Listen, I know you've been working hard to keep in shape, but please ... that's a picture I do not want to see. Tony? Naked? Please, pass the Pepto again."

Is it possible the Red Sox are listening and also, subconsciously, know that these images will be part of the true cost of a World Series title?


	This is not a photo from Deanna Merryman's Playboy shoot.

Because married men cheat on their mistresses more?
Deanna Merryman tells Playboy all about her 11-month affair with Jeff Gordon, a dalliance that caused Gordon's divorce after his wife read about it in the tabloids. Of course, there's a nude photo of her, to provide context.

Merryman, a renaissance woman who has sold cosmetics, modeled, and appeared on "Baywatch," tells Playboy her next career move is "pharmaceutical sales."

Says Merryman, "I have learned an important lesson: I'll never get involved with a married man again. Or a race car driver."

November

Not the best form of motivation
This is porn: you watch passively as someone else scores. This is soccer, Namibian-style: you watch passively as the other team scores. The Namibian women's team combined the two: local media reported the team watched six porn films in their hotel the night before losing to South Africa 13-0 in an Olympic qualifying match.

So, does she get a cut of your salary?
Matt Dawson, member of England's World Cup-winning Rugby scrum, tells the BBC that he credits a streaker for inspiring his path to international rugby greatness.

With England facing Australia in January 1982, Dawson, an 11-year-old boy, witnessed in person Erica Rowe's famous nude sprint across Twickenham pitch. "That sort of opened my eyes as a youngster," said Dawson. "I don't think my mum was particularly happy with my father at that stage that he would take me to that sort of rugby match."

December

LT: Living the dream?
Lawrence Taylor's autobiography, "LT: Over the Edge" is excerpted in the Dec. 8 issue of ESPN The Magazine. LT can't remember everything, so some friends help out. Here's a sampling of testimony, from former Giants linebacker Byron Hunt:

"Early on, we shared a house, and we had some memorable parties. One night, there was a guy or girl in every room and every closet, either sleeping or having sex. And that was a three-bedroom house with a study, living room, kitchen, dining room, pantry, basement. Oh, I forgot the shower. There were two or three people in there, too. We were living the dream. we had two things in that refrigerator: Budweiser and what was called a strawberry shake; that's strawberry-flavored penicillin for any disease you might get from being with the wrong women."

LT also writes that once, in Houston, the Oilers sent two girls to his hotel room the night before the game, to try to distract him, and that he later used the same tactic on opponents, making sure he knew their particular desires.


	All we can say is we now know Jamie definitely deserved the gold medal.

Jamie Sal�'s secret French fantasy
Canadian ice skater Jamie Sal�, 2002 Winter Olympics gold medalist, is featured in the Jan. 2004 issue of FHM magazine. At the publication's Website, she appears in a topless spread, covered up high only by faux ice shavings. Sal�, 26, looks terrific, and doesn't hesitate to show off on the ice. "This year I skated in an outfit with a very, very low front and a short, short skirt. I wore it skating to a Journey song. That was hot."

But not as hot as she'd like. "If I were wearing panties," she says, "I'd skate in a French maid's outfit."

We wonder if such a scenario would have upped Marie-Reine Le Gougne's score of her Salt Lake routine.

Hey, this could accelerate speed dating!
Many YMCAs and other gyms are considering banning cell phones from locker rooms now that many of the devices come camera-equipped, ready to send naked photos in mere seconds, reports News.com.

"There were a number of branches that approached us with concern about this," YMCA spokesman Arnold Collins says. "We haven't heard of a single case of a member being victimized by being photographed."

But now that the idea has been planted, there is only one problem: As far as we know, men's and women's locker room remain separate ...

And you should see the rug in front of the fireplace
Gayle Lee and Laura Raposa write a gossip column in the Boston Herald called "Inside Track." They reported that during a recent "Hockey 101 for Women" event (Naked City dubs it "Hockey for Chicks") at the FleetCenter in Boston, the ladies had some questions for Bruins defenseman Ian Moran. They were touring the locker room, and saw his funky skate guards. He happened to be working out nearby, and asked what inspired the leopard-spotted guards. "They match my thong," he said.