Esquire

5 Things You Don't Know About Lindsay McCormick

The tabloids call her "attractive blond sports reporter" getting "eyes" from Mark Sanchez. We call her fantastic. An introduction, in her own words.

[as originally published on esquire.com]

On Tuesday morning, Lindsay McCormick woke up to find her name — and that of a certain New York Jets quarterback — plastered on top of a rather incendiary "report" from Page Six of the New York Post. She hasn't been able to spend a lot of time watching Gang Green, it presumed, but she knew "everyone in the football world." Well, yeah, because she's a sports reporter — and a damn good one at that. So the 23-year-old Houston native walked into the offices of Comcast SportsNet in Portland, where she's getting ready to cover the Blazers and not football, and pulled a prank on someone else instead. "I went to Auburn, and we kicked my producer's butt this weekend," she told Esquire.com shortly thereafter, in her first post-Post interview. "So I plastered his desk with posters of our Heisman-candidate QB that say YES WE CAN. It hasn't been too bad a day." While McCormick wouldn't confirm or deny her status with No. 6, she did giggle pretty much every time we mentioned the Jets. Because Lindsay McCormick has a great giggle. She also happens to be equally charming when it comes to her fellow sports reporters, her ascent from star ESPN intern to ESPN star, and the rest of a football season that's been as unpredictable as Page Six.

She might give Erin Andrews a run for her money... on Dancing with the Stars.

"I'm now a competitive dancer on the side — there's just no time — but I've danced since I was two. And I was a cheerleader from early on, too, until I fell tumbling freshman year, then had my appendix burst before the season sophomore year. So I kind of planned on doing it anyway, but that's how I, um, fell into sideline reporting. It was the first thing I thought of in the hospital — except for my stomach."

She's might give Erin Andrews a run for her money anyway.

"I went to a tech-based high school, so I got fired by the TV station as the weather girl for predicting the wrong forecast. But I got promoted to anchor. Then in college, I was covering an Auburn game and just asked a couple ESPN producers across the way, 'Hey, do you guys have any openings?' It was a joke, really, but I passed their ultimate sports quiz and got an internship — I know sports pretty well, maybe not Scott Van Pelt well, but pretty well. By the time I finished up my coursework early, I went back in May of '09, and my demo real just got passed around quicker than I could follow it. College Pick 'Emcame pretty soon after that."

She's not sure which was harder: switching from football to basketball or relative anonymity to the most Googled name on the Internet.

"The sports season never ends, and I do love football, but I was at Blazers practice the other day and I thought, 'Man, I could get used to this.' I was doing both at ESPN The Magazine anyway and — I'm not gonna let the events from this morning affect me, really."

She's not sure about the BCS. either.

"In 2004, Auburn got screwed, so I don't always think it's fair, but I understand that you have to look at strength of schedule. There are some teams ranked so high — like Oregon — that, well, they've done the most they can. Do I think they should be ahead of someone like Oklahoma? I can't be that biased."

She has confidence in New York's quarterback.

"The Jets have had quite the year. Going into the season, someone asked me who I thought would be the team to beat. And I said, 'Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers — definitely.' But then — you have another young quarterback in his second year who has a newfound confidence.... And I know the Jets have a bye week, but going up against Rodgers in Week Eight — we'll see."