Before she made headlines by snapping back at Andy Rooney's 2002 sputterings about how women had "no business" talking about football, and long before Joe Namath — drunk and slurry, in a sideline moment preserved for all time by thousands of YouTube downloads — declared that he wanted to kiss her, Suzy Kolber was a little girl in love with football. She remembers being 8 years old, in suburban Philadelphia, mesmerized by Howard Cosell's Monday-night halftime highlights. She made national headlines when she was 10, one of the first girls to make a boy's football
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Before she made headlines by snapping back at Andy Rooney's 2002 sputterings about how women had "no business" talking about football, and long before Joe Namath — drunk and slurry, in a sideline moment preserved for all time by thousands of YouTube downloads — declared that he wanted to kiss her, Suzy Kolber was a little girl in love with football. She remembers being 8 years old, in suburban Philadelphia, mesmerized by Howard Cosell's Monday-night halftime highlights. She made national headlines when she was 10, one of the first girls to make a boy's football
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Monday Night Football's decision to sack buxom sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero and bring in ESPN vet Michele Tafoya may not go over too well with the broadcast's young male viewers. But you don't have to tell Tafoya that. "I know I'm not a pinup," concedes the 39-year-old NBA fixture. "I'm just a no-nonsense reporter who is really, really passionate about sports."
It's a distinction true football fans can appreciate — especially coming off of last season's on-air fiasco. Guerrero's brief gridiron gig was universally panned by critics, many of whom blasted ABC for shamelessly emphasizing sex appeal over substance in its pursuit of that ever-elusive younger demo. For her part, Tafoya doesn't blame the network for hiring actresses to play broadcasters.
"TV is a really visual medium," she says. "Really beautiful people get you to stop and watch and that's just the way it is; that's natural. Believe me, if I could have it all I would
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