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ESPN The Magazine Transformed Alex Morgan Into Katy Perry

ESPN the Magazine has a music-themed issue coming out. In it, they used athletes from several different sports to recreate iconic images from the music world: Josh Freeman became “Thriller”-era Michael Jackson, and Ryan Lochte became the baby from the Nevermind cover, for example. As much flack as ESPN gets, we think this is a pretty cool idea, and will probably be worthy of a “which transformation was best” post from us at some point.

For now, though, we’ll focus on one particular transformation that might command special attention: that of Alex Morgan, on-and-off holder of the title of “America’s Sports Sweetheart.” Morgan’s task: become Katy Perry, as seen on the cover of her album One of the Boys. Here’s how it went down:

And to us, it looks like it went pretty well – a good idea well-executed. We may actually have to pick up a copy of the magazine to see how all these turned out. A trio of NFLers as Run-D.M.C. (though Darren McFadden really should have been worked in there somehow)? Jimmie Johnson as Bob Dylan?! This is inspired stuff. And while Morgan is right that she normally doesn’t look terribly much like Perry… well, Lochte doesn’t look much like a baby, either. We wouldn’t sweat it.

[h/t Grant Wahl]