Why Didn't This Happen Fifteen Years Ago?

I used to not like female sports reporters that much and for a long time, I blamed you Alice Cook.

When I was a kid, Alice Cook had a somewhat recurring role on Channel 4 Sports. I used to watch her "special" reports and I was never that into them. I felt like she was always talking about some marathoner who overcame cancer. And while these "feel good sports stories" occassionally get to me now (Josh Hamilton's story is wild), back then, I just wanted to see some out of town scores and highlights from George Brett and Cal Ripken so I could know who to draft on my "fantasy wiffle ball team" (why I didn't find a way to somehow capitalize on this now billion dollar industry pisses me off a bit) the following summer.

And so because of this poor introduction into female sportscasters, I have had a long standing dislike for them. I especially disliked these women in what I like to call the "dark days of my Alex P. Keaton Conservative Youth" when I hated all things not white male. I also didn't like that I had to suffer through years of television executives wanting women with "credibility" and so I had to watch the likes of Mary Carillo, Jackie MacMullan (a face made for print journalism) and Linda Cohn. I always wondered why they didn't trot out a Paulina Porizkova (I liked her in my pre teen years) type.

But there were also rationale, somewhat more concrete reasons why I didn't like female sportscasters. In my heart of hearts, I really didn't think women liked sports. They just said they did in the hopes that it impressed dudes (in the interest of full disclosure, I SILL think this and if you disagree with my hypothesis, then saunter on over to match.com and check out the number of redsoxgurlforlife screen names you'll see).

Then, it just shocked me that women wanted any part of this culture. To this day, I would love to know how much- in the alpha male world of professional sports- these women are looked down upon. So I often wondered (wonder?) why women would even want to get into the field. As our generation evolves into more free thinking, accepting culture, I truly hope that this doesn't happen, but given what I hear coming out of high school coaches mouths, I sometimes feel that the boys club that is professional sports will never allow any female constituents. What Lisa Olsen went through with Zeke Mowat and company is exhibit number 1A of how awful these relationships must be. I hope these relationships improve, but I get the sense that there will never be equality between the female sports reporter and the male professional athlete. In fact, it will likely always be at best a 70/30 realtionship. And I think you know who the 70 is in that relationship.

But, since we had that whole women's suffrage thing, the Equal Rights Amendment and blah, blah, blah, then we as a society HAD to grant women the right to be sportscasters and so it appears that women will forever and always be in this field. With that in mind, I guess I will have to rid my 1950s belief that women don't belong in sports and just accept it. And last night, while watching the home run derby, I decided that the TV execs have finally got it right and so not only do I accept women sportscasters, but I think I full on embrace it. Here's why: The people running sports broadcasting decided to just trot out hotties.

A decade or so ago, TV execs tried at first to give us professional women. They likely did this in attempt to show us that they were NOT part of the boys club and they were progressive and free thinking. Then they tried to give us kind of professional and kind of hot when they realized that the straight up professional chicks were garnering zero credibility and looked strictly like window dressing.

But now, those same execs have punted the whole idea of professional and just given us hot. And I love it.

This progression, which happened very quickly, was a four step process that went somewhat like this...

So As Not To Make It Look Too Obvious, Hire The Really Cute But Not Straight Out Bangin' Hot Like That Girl In Your Botany Class Sophmore Year Who Looked Like She Had Real Potential But Was Always Wearing A Sweatshirt: This category is made up of one person, Melissa Stark. I have absolutely no idea what she does now and a quick google search says she is out of sports. But she was solid and surprisingly unannoying. She was considered uber hot when she debuted, but that's because I think we were all used to seeing Armen Keteyian down there on the sideline and so anything blonde with boobies was going to look solid. But then TV execs decided to say fuck it, we're hiring...

The Cougar, Fairly Skanky Looking Women Who Were Going To Appeal To Middle Aged Men, But Still Not Be Good Enough To Be Accepted Completely By The Masses Because, While Hot, They May, Just MAY Have Gotten Their Jobs Because They Were Marginally Talented: These are Leeann Tweeden, Jill Arrington, and one of my personal favorite cougars (and a true butterface Franco), Jillian Barberie. While it was obvious that these women were put on TV because of their skanability factor, it was somehow excused by the masses because they gave them preposterous jobs like reporting the weather at football stadiums (Barberie) or doing a preview of The X Games (Tweeden). Also, while hot and skanky, they were a bit old and were almost caricatures of themselves (playing the role of the hot, dumb girl in on the sports thing) and so they weren't taken seriously. That's when the big wigs in the television industry said...

We Might Want To Tweak This And Bring In Some Women Who Are Hot, But Also Have Some Sports Background So This Whole Thing Isn't Looking Too Pathetic: That's when your Summer Sanders/Kathryn Tappen type came on board. They were solid athletes in sports that didn't command big money or big ratings (swimming and track), and they also happened to be cute. They were a professional step up from the aforementioned Cougs, but there was still something missing. And what was missing was total hotness. That's when the Head Honchos at CBS/NBC/ESPN/FOX/ABC said...

Fuck Looking Too Pathetic Or Obvious... We Are Hiring Former Beauty Queens Who Are Straight Up Hot And We'll Teach Them How To Act In Front Of A Camera And If We All Agree To Do This, Then All These Women Will Have To Be Taken Seriously And In Five Years Time, We'll Forget The Days We Even Thought About Trotting Out Peter Vescey: You can also call this Hot Sideline Reporter Collusion and the results have been on a local level Heidi Whatney and Julie Donaldson (who has shown us why it is not good to date a guy who plays SlamBall). Now, I'm sure at every single local affiliate there are two women just like Heidi and Julie (who are both not at all annoying and not at all painful to look at... I mean watch) because that apparently is the obvious trend. One of them out in LA was so good looking that Derek Lowe decided to ditch Trinka and shack up with said hottie. Apparently, the New York sports stations are also toting around these hotties and I bet they show up in Texas, Chicago, Philly, and every other television market that has a sports team.

It has been hilarious to see this brilliant change. It happened almost overnight and now these women are popping up everywhere and why not? I mean really, what took the TV Honchos this long to come up with this idea? Was Jim Grey really netting networks ratings? And even if these women have absolutely zero credibility and seem woefully out of place, do you even care? Are you even hearing what these hotties are saying? Do you care what they are saying? It's a genius change. And because this new breed of women sportscasters hold the traits desired by the more superficial man, I greatly applaud this change.

My days of hating Alice Cook are over. She was never the issue. What was the issue was my- even at the age of ten- wanting to see hot girls. And so in fact, I've come to like Alice Cook because I realize that she paved the way for hotties like Heidi and Julie. She's like the Rosa Parks of female sportscasters. And she helped me morph from a female sportcaster hater into a supporter of the group.

Now, if she could just some how get me to meet the crown jewel of female sportcasters, Erin Andrews, then I'd be really happy for her. I am still holding out for Megan Fox post dumping of Brian Austin Green (finally!), but she hasn't called yet. So after watching three hours of home run derby and spending a good deal of that time with Erin Andrews (watching her interview George Lopez in that dress at the celebrity softball game actually made watching someone interview George Lopez enjoyable), I've decided that she'd be a fine Future Ex Mrs. Coughlin.

If you can make that happen Alice, I'd be doubly happy with you. Thanks.