TNEA of the Month: April

OK, now for those who actually scrolled down this far and made it past the picture...

April is widely considered the best sports month of the year. Opening Day; NFL Draft; NBA and NHL races heating up; Final Four (love how March Madness has turned into April Absurdity); and of course, the birthday month of yours truly.

Thusly, April deserves a strong candidate for this month's TNEA, or The Next Erin Andrews if you're new to the club. Every month, Tribute will pay respects to a young woman out there, preferably in the world of sports, who just might have the the good looks and good charm to one day take over for the lovely Erin Andrews, should she ever choose to leave her ESPN gig and spend the remainder of her days throwing down the Gator Chomp in Gainesville. Or lusting into the hands of another man in SEC land.

Now, if you had to guess which one of the lovely ladies at the top of this post is the focus of our fawning this month, it'd be tough, now would it? It's a good month indeed; three good candidates right there.

But alas, one must portray more than just babe-like symptoms to take over for EA; experience is a must, too. The blonde on the left is Melanie Collins, of NBA.com League Pass (discovered her during halftime of the Nuggets-Mavericks game), of Big Ten Network (where's your hot correspondents, Big XII Network? What up?) and most importantly, of the Tempe12 models.



Now we love Charissa Thompson, March's nominee. She's also with the BTN. (Seriously, B-dubs, scoreboard. 2-0) But Charissa, the smokin' ex-Rockies sideline girl, doesn't have a lineup of pics like these...

What more can you say? Melanie's a Penn State grad (B-dubs needs a shovel to dig out of this Big-Ten-stomps-Big-XII-like hole) and is our age. Yep, the 22-year-old Nittany Lion graduated last year, and is already working along the likes of Gary Payton, Chris Webber and David Aldridge for NBATV.

Hot damn. Now that's setting the bar high for future TNEA candidates. But we'll do our best, starting again on May 1.

-AJ