One of my favorite all-time stories is about Elvis Grbac (left), Rich Gannon (right) and People Magazine’s Sexiest Men issue from 1998. It is both outlandish and 100-percent true.
Back in the day I knew many People staffers, and they were all cool, fun, intelligent—and woefully ignorant about sports. Every year, in planning the Sexiest Men issue, People’s editors would ask a bunch of us at Sports Illustrated for suggestions and insight. In 1998, for a reason I’ll never understand, they decided not to seek out help.
The magazine chose Rich Gannon as its Sexiest Athlete. At the time, Gannon was a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. Still a couple of seasons removed from his golden tenure with the Raiders, Gannon was 33, handsome and likable. In other words, a solid choice. Yet People, being People, simply informed the photographer assigned to the piece that the Sexiest Athlete was the Chiefs’ quarterback. Hence, he took pictures of the Chiefs’ quarterback. Well, one of the Chiefs’ quarterbacks: Elvis Grbac.
Yup.
The pictures made their way back to the New York offices, and editors were dumbfounded. This was their Sexiest Athlete? Yet upon learning the truth, no one with the magazine had the heart (guts?) to tell Grbac that an unfathomable mistake had been made. As a result, Elvis Grbac reigns as People’s 1998 Sexiest Athlete.
The article’s final line says it all: “His personality makes him sexy.”
Originally Posted by scho63:
That 49er reject **** killed another of our Super Bowl dreams.
After Mahomes throws for his 6th touchdown of the game, they will flash a graphic listing every last cock-sucking 49er QB the Chiefs fished out of the trash over the last 30 years. [Reply]
Originally Posted by crazycoffey:
Can’t read it, not starting a free trial to read it either. What’s the new info that’s being shared about this boring story
The writer, Jayson Jenks, was able to get Jeff Pearlman's source for the original story, a Jennifer Wulff, to provide a little bit more detail about how the screw-up happened,
Originally Posted by Excerpt from Jayson Jenks' piece in the Athletic:
Best as Wulff can remember, all the People staffers and correspondents were on a conference call when someone, somewhere blurted out, “The Kansas City quarterback is really hot.” It was eventually decided that, yes, the Kansas City quarterback would be that year’s Sexiest Athlete Alive.
“Somehow,” she said, laughing more now, “the photos came back and the interview came back,” (even more laughter), “and we were like, ‘What the hell? This is not …'” (a cascade of laughs).
According to Wulff, the photo editors called in the staff to look at the pictures that would run in the magazine, and it didn’t take long for everyone in the room to realize that something had gone wrong. “One of the editors said, ‘This is the guy?’ Then we were looking it up and figured out that it was the other quarterback.”
As in Gannon, Grbac’s backup.
“And then it was too late,” Wulff said. “They felt so bad. We couldn’t cancel it at that point. It would be so mean.”
Frankly, I never saw how Gannon could have been the winner, either. I think they must've been talking about a cornerback or Len Dawson or something. [Reply]
