Fresh off her domination of Timed Finals’ Top 5 Most Appealing Swimmers,
Amanda Beard will be appearing in Playboy. A reliable source has told me that Beard has decided to finally appear in the magazine, and will do so in five weeks. Ms. Beard is no stranger to photo shoots, as she has appeared in spreads in FHM, Maxim and the SI Swimsuit Edition. She also, during 2004, carried the title of Most Downloaded Female Athlete.
This is interesting because it comes fresh off the debate about women’s current place in sports, after radio personality Don Imus was fired for calling the Rutgers Womens Basketball players “nappy headed ho’s.” On the heels of that, some are beginning to question where women now stand in sport. Although women in collegiate sports in America has grown from 16,000 in 1971 to 180,000 in 2006, a recent study conducted by Margaret Carlisle Duncan of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Michael Messner of USC revealed that ESPN’s “SportsCenter” covered male stories in a 20 to 1 ratio.