Hey guys! From today's
USA Today, here's an article on this Sunday's 13th Annual ESPY Awards, which honors the best in the world of sports.
Athletes Play On Red Carpet
By William Keck, USA TODAY
HOLLYWOOD — Five months after the boxing movie
Million Dollar Baby knocked out its competition at the Academy Awards, the Kodak Theatre rolled out its red carpet to honor sports' greatest sluggers, slam-dunkers and swingers. Wednesday night's 13th Annual ESPY Awards (airing Sunday, 9 p.m. ET/PT on ESPN) gave athletes the chance to ditch their sweats for designer duds. (But
Million Dollar Baby lost out to
Friday Night Lights as best sports movie.)
Last year's Wimbledon champ, Maria Sharapova, sported quite a movie star look with her chocolate-colored pantsuit.
Getty Images
Russian Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova, voted best women's tennis player, looked part movie star/part Cleopatra in a low-cut, open-back pantsuit accessorized with a gold serpent armlet wrapped around her bicep. "I've never worn anything like this before," she said. "I don't know what vibe I'm going for today. I'm classy, yet sexy."
Jennie Finch had to share the award for best female Olympic performance with her fellow Team USA softball players. But her sexy purple Jenny Packham gown won her individual recognition. "Being an athlete, you don't often get to do your makeup and hair, go dress shopping and walk a red carpet," she said. "Usually it's just tennis shoes and gym clothes."
Married presenters Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey sprinted hand-in-hand down the carpet, allowing the athletes to take the spotlight. Later on stage, after Simpson didn't quite nail her joke, Lachey patted his wife's shoulder. As a clip package played, the couple shared a private laugh on the darkened stage. They returned to their seats to watch the show for an hour before making an early exit.
Matthew Perry hosted the show, and in his monologue, he skewered fallen boxing star Mike Tyson. He advised attendees, "Please don't forget to tip (Tyson) as you exit the restroom." The jab registered mostly laughs and applause.
Nicollette Sheridan, back in town from her European travels to begin work this week on
Desperate Housewives' sophomore season, enjoyed an onstage reunion with Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens. The two made fun of their controversial November 2004
Monday Night Football skit that found Sheridan, clad in just a towel, putting the moves on Owens. "So this is what you look like with your clothes on," Owens cracked to Sheridan, who now sports a shorter 'do.
Sheridan's
Housewives co-star James Denton had just returned from Detroit, where he took part in Sunday's celebrity softball face-off for the All-Star Game. His American League lost to Billy Bob Thornton's National League, but Denton said he felt like "a kid at Christmas. I was the only guy to hit two homers."
Denton was due back on Wisteria Lane Thursday to shoot a season-premiere scene with Teri Hatcher and Cody Kasch that begins with "the gun going off."
The ESPYs closed with Destiny's Child introducing a fourth member, just for the night: Tennis champ Serena Williams was grinding right alongside Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
But the most emotional moment of the night, according to presenter and Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey, was when Oprah Winfrey bestowed the Arthur Ashe Courage Award to two champs who refuse to allow physical handicaps to block their dreams: Bicyclists Jim MacLaren, now a quadriplegic, and Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, born in Ghana, West Africa, with one malformed right leg, are using their voices to empower other disabled athletes.
After the show, Yeboah shared a private moment with Winfrey, whose voice will be heard narrating Yeboah's life story in the upcoming documentary
Emmanuel's Gift.
"Oprah said she's very proud of me," Yeboah beamed. "She wanted me to say hi to all of Ghana's people who watch her show at 12 a.m."
Athletes Play On Red Carpet @ The 2005 ESPY Awards (USA Today) 
