Yesterday our very own Burnsy told you about Axelle Despiegelaere, the 17-year-old Belgian girl whose name is worth 89 points in Scrabble. Also, she recently got a modeling contract after being spotted in the crowd during a World Cup match. It’s about time something good happened to a pretty white blonde woman! Anyway, Despiegelaere is only the latest in a line of sports fans without cheese stains on their “vintage” jersey who became famous after being “discovered” in the crowd.
Here are a few famous examples.
1. Pam Anderson
Unlike the ladies listed below, Pam Anderson didn’t have the Internet to help her go viral — she did it the ol’ fashioned way, by going to a Canadian Football League game in Vancouver. It was there that she was featured on the big screen wearing a tight Labatt’s Beer t-shirt, an image so well received by those drunken hockey pucks, that Anderson was eventually escorted down to the field. (Dats good PR.) And somewhere out there, Tommy Lee’s sex tape sense was tingling.
2. Jenn Sterger
Long before the words “Brett Favre” and “c*ck shots” came together to form the worst sentence in the English language, Jenn Sterger was a student at Florida State University, where she, along with three other ladies, were part of a cheer group called the Cowgirls. Wikipedia notes they were known for “wearing skimpy clothing and cowboy hats to football games,” which, yeah, pretty much. The Cowgirls coming-out party was during a 2005 Florida State vs. Miami game, when horndog announcer Brent Musburger noted that “1,500 red-blooded Americans just decided to apply to Florida State.”
3. Katherine Webb
Speaking of Musburger: he turned Katherine Webb, the then-girlfriend of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, into a national star when during the 2013 BCS National Championship Game, he praised her stunning good looks, calling her “beautiful.” It was a little creepy, but it all turned out OK, because if not for that game, she never would have been on Splash and we never would have gotten this GIF.
Oops. Wrong one.
Much better.
4. Front Row Amy
Front Row Amy was “discovered” by Deadspin readers back in 2011, and in the three years since, the Milwaukee Brewers die-hard has seemed to enjoy her very specific kind of notoriety. Her Facebook page has nearly 85,000 “Likes,” and you can even buy Front Row Amy shirts on her website. Her Twitter account is probably pretty popular with Hank, too.
5. Kate Upton
In early 2011, Kate Upton’s stock was rising as quickly as a teenage boy looking at her SI bikini photos, but she wasn’t a household name yet. Then she did the Dougie at a Los Angeles Clippers game, the clip went viral, and now she’s starring in awful romantic comedies with the Kingslayer. The American dream.