Herbstreit nominated for Sexiest ESPN Employee

COLUMBUS, OH — College football analyst Kirk Herbstreit spoke briefly with SSNN via phone from his home Monday morning, hours after the former Ohio State quarterback was notified he has been nominated for an ESPY award given to the ‘Sexiest Employee’ at ESPN. The winner will be announced July 20 at a ceremony in Hollywood, Calif.

“I’m actually speechless at the moment, only because I’m not really sure what this award is supposed to symbolize,” a confused Herbstreit said. “It comes as bit of a shock that ESPN would go in this sort of direction, resorting to some MTV-type crap. But, all things considered, I shouldn’t be that surprised. I mean, this comes from a network where the executives have their heads firmly planted in the ass of Red Sox Nation six months out of the year. This new ESPY category seems to fall in line with ESPN’s gravitation towards teeny-bopper culture.”

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Despite his reaction to ESPN’s unfortunate turn in programming, Herbstreit is fairly certain that he’ll win the Sexiest Employee award. In fact, his harsh view of the honor’s genesis has as much to do with his own over-confidence as with his attitude towards the award itself.

“Upper level management seems extremely out-of-touch with reality nowadays. Why else would they conjure up an award that features no spirit of competition whatsoever?” Herbstreit asked. “Not to sound overly confident, but who really stands a chance against me to win this distinction? Nobody comes to mind.”

The two candidates likely to challenge Herbstreit for the honor – the recipient of which will automatically enter contention for People magazine’s “Sexiest Person Alive” label – both declined their nominations. Senior ESPN.com writer John Clayton cited emotional distress as a result of alleged prolonged verbal abuse at the hands of fellow NFL analyst Sean Salisbury, and told SSNN he would not accept what he called “an overwhelming number of sympathy votes from fans.”

Meanwhile, sources close to Erin Andrews report the 29-year-old sideline beauty has plans to vacation with University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow in late July, and will be physically unable to attend. The two were seen in public together this past weekend, as Andrews, Herbstreit and the rest of the College GameDay Live crew visited Gainesville, Fla. for the Gators’ annual spring game.

Prior to the conversation with Herbstreit, a spokesperson with ESPN told SSNN that network brass has decided to nominate Herbstreit’s broadcast partner and close friend, Lee Corso – to make up for the absence of Clayton and Andrews and spice up what has become a one-horse race.

“Corso got nominated, too? You have to be kidding me,” said Herbstreit, who – at age 38 – is the youngest major network college football commentator in the country. “That poor geezer doesn’t stand a chance. I’ll whip him so bad, dust will come pouring out. The only person that concerned me was Erin, and she’s out. A lot of people out there will suspect that I had a hand in Tim and Erin getting together, so that she would drop out of contention, but that’s only partially true. I just hope, for Lee’s sake, that something doesn’t ‘happen’ to him between now and July.”