Media Monster

PHOTO: USA Soccer Hero Gets Nakey For ESPN Mag’s Body Issue

For those of you used to seeing your naked athletes through grainy cell phone photos, ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue may be a shock to the system.

Team USA Soccer goalie and all-American hero Tim Howard will appear nude in the upcoming edition (albeit with strategically-placed goalie gloves blocking his junk. Sorry ladies).

In addtion to Howard, tennis star Venus Williams, pool-playing hottie Jeannette Lee, pretty much the entire USA Men’s Water Polo team, and a bunch of Division 1 college athletes (what?) will appear sans clothes.

USA Today’s interview with ESPN Mag’s Editor-in-Cheif, Gary Belsky, has some interesting tidbits about the Body Issue, namely that Danica Patrick said no, an unnamed women’s basketball player’s image “will be completely turned upside down,” and they were going to ask Tiger Woods, but then all of that stuff happened.

Also:

We’re doing a story about athletes crapping their pants. It’s funny, it’s interesting, its personal, its revelatory…It’s a story that will get the most buzz because it’s a place where no sports magazine, as far as I know, has ever dared to go.

Um… cool?

[Naked truth: ESPN The Magazine's Gary Belsky on 2nd Annual 'Body Issue'] USA Today