When walking onto press row for Illini versus Michigan State last night, out of the corner of my eye I noticed what I thought was Erin Andrews and thought to myself “well, I guess EA dyed her hair.” Turns out it wasn’t EA at all, but a ESPN newbie who’s taking a lot of the gigs she used to cover.
These days, Andrews pretty much only does the big nationally relevant college basketball and college football games, and although Illinois’ solid beating of MSU was a Big Ten conference game between two ranked teams, the contest did not have nearly the same cachet of recent years. And someone new needs to step up and fill Andrews’ media eye candy shoes.
Enter Jill Montgomery.
You can follow Jill on Twitter by going here. From the small sample size of tweets I saw, she appears to be more civilized, less abrasive and considerably more non-insane than I am when it comes to tweeting practices. Montgomery’s self-description on Twitter reads as follows:
Sideline Reporter, Columnist for CollegeInsider.com // Love Fine Wine, Fashion, Food, College FB/Hoops & Celtics!
Then there’s a link to her College Insider profile which states that she is yet another model-turned-broadcaster:
She is a former professional Track and Field athlete and was one of the country’s top heptathletes and pole vaulters.After retiring from athletics in 2001, she had a very successful career in Hollywood as a fashion sports model, appearing in magazines like Shape, Muscle&Fitness Hers and on TV in commercials for NIKE, TYLENOL and OLYMPIC SBC Spots.
Jill has been styled by some of the biggest names in fashion and was even named to Femme Fatales Magazine “Top 50 Sexiest Women in Hollywood”
By the way, I have no clue what a heptathlete is as I don’t follow track and field, but it sounds rather physically exhaustive and rigorous.
You can learn more about Montgomery’s athletic and journalistic background by going here
For a video interview of Erin Andrews go here
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net. He’s also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com.
He does a weekly radio segment on Chicagoland Sports Radio.com and Cleveland.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank
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