I broke down the first part of her interview yesterday, and generally speaking, I think Hill is missing the point. Sterger wants to answer charges that she’s a gold-digger, and apparently she’s not. She hasn’t profited from this situation at all. Good for her. But she also wants to answer charges that she’s a home-wrecker, and those accusations are not so easily dismissed since she did engage in some sort of interaction through text message with Favre for a period of time.

If she wasn’t interested in what he had to say, then she never should have responded to him. Ignore his texts and voicemails and he’ll eventually go away. But she didn’t do that. She admitted to texting him but couldn’t recall what her texts were about, claiming that she was just trying to figure out who it was. So something doesn’t add up.

Regardless, I think we’re all ready for this story to finally go away. But let’s not leave this thinking that Sterger is some sort of victim. Had she not interacted with Favre via text or shared those texts/voicemails with friends, this story never would have seen the light of day. Favre is mostly responsible for the interaction/incident, but she was complicit by responding to those texts. And due to her poor choice in confidants, she was mostly responsible for this story becoming public.

I just watched both segments of the first part of the “Good Morning America” interview with George Stephanopoulos and a few of Sterger’s statements deserve comment. If you’re wondering about my original take on the story, be sure to read “In defense of Jenn Sterger…”

“I didn’t want anything to do with it in 2008. I don’t want anything to do with it in 2010.”

If she didn’t want anything to do with it in 2010, why did she mention Favre’s advances to the editor of a sports gossip blog? As I outlined in the link above, when she spoke with Deadspin, she hadn’t yet landed her job on the now defunct “The Daily Line” and was probably uncertain where her media career was headed. If she had truly decided that she didn’t want the story to ever come out, she never would have brought it up to the editor of a sports blog.

“Whenever I would reply it was more so trying to figure out who I was interacting with. There was no actual, ‘Hey Jenn, it’s Brett.”

Is she serious? She’s expecting us to believe that she didn’t recognize Favre’s voice on her voicemails? Either it was Favre or someone doing a fantastic impression. Has anyone asked Frank Caliendo about his involvement? Or how about this guy?

This is the thing that has always struck me as odd about her story. She acts as if Favre’s advances were unwelcome, yet she admits that she sent multiple texts to him. She said his advances were “intimidating,” so why is she responding at all? Just block his number and move on.

Stephanopoulos must have had the same thought because in the key sequence of the interview, he eventually asked her, “Why answer?”

JS: Why answer? When all of this happened, I consulted several people and I said, ‘Hey this is the situation that is going on right now.’ And I said, ‘I really don’t know what to do.’ Every single one of them gave me the exact same answer. They said, ‘Jenn, do you like your job? Well if you like your job and want to keep it, I suggest that you just be quiet. Do your job.'”

GS: Leave it alone.

JS: Yeah, don’t complain.

Did you see what she did there? That’s a classic deflection. Stephanopoulos asked her about her reasoning for answering Favre’s texts in the first place, and she responded with a soliloquy about how she was asking her friends for advice and that they told her to “be quiet.”

Huh?

What does her advice-seeking have to do with her responding to Favre in the first place? ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Stephanopoulos must have some inside info, because he later asked her about a specific text that she sent Favre:

GS: Did you send him a text that said, “If this is you, smile at me.”

JS: No, I don’t really recall all of the texts. I don’t remember what was in them. I’m sorry.

Ah, well, that’s convenient. She remembers all sorts of details about how this whole thing started and how she deftly put together that her “secret” admirer was in fact Brett Favre, but she can’t remember if she sent him a text that asked him to smile at her. Her answer was evasive as well. First she says “no” but then she says she doesn’t recall.

The interview turned to Deadspin and how they got the texts and photos, and she still claims that she didn’t sell them. When Stephanopoulos asked if she had ever given the texts/photos to anyone, she responded, “I shared them with individuals when I was asking for advice, but that’s it.”

When “asking for advice,” is it really necessary to provide proof of Favre’s texts/photos? If that’s the case, she should seriously rethink who she goes to for advice. A friend would believe her story and not require that she send over all of her evidence in order to help.

When George Stephanopoulos asked if she owed anyone an apology, she replied, “I don’t think so. I didn’t really do anything wrong.”

She doesn’t think that actively texting a married man who is obviously interested her is wrong? She would have come off a lot better here if she had apologized to Favre’s wife, Deanna, for sending her husbands any texts at all.

I’ve decided that this is what really happened: Favre started texting Sterger and the two engaged in a flirtatious, if-this-is-you-smile-at-me-type relationship through text. After some time passed, Sterger decided that she didn’t want it to go any further and pulled away. Favre upped the ante with some pics of his junk, and she shared them with some friends for a laugh. That’s it, the texts eventually stopped. Two years later she stupidly mentions the interaction to Deadspin and the blog somehow acquires all the texts and photos (and voicemails!) from one of Sterger’s so-called “friends,” who totally threw Sterger under the bus for $12,000.

End of story. I hope.

See both segments of the first part of the Jenn Sterger interview after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Brett Favre-Jenn Sterger saga just got a whole lot creepier. According to the New York Daily News (via TMZ.com), Favre wanted Sterger to reciprocate when he sent her the photos of his junk.

According to TMZ.com, Favre, who allegedly sent graphic text messages to the TV personality in 2008, also requested to see a video of Sterger masturbating.

The request, reportedly sent via text months after the X-rated photos were exchanged, may be one of the documents included in the NFL’s investigation of the football star.

Sterger also wants the league to establish an anti-sexual harassment program to prevent incidents like the one she had with Favre, who now plays for the Minnesota Vikings, from happening again.

It’s not surprising to hear that there’s more to this story but I’m still not buying that Sterger is a victim. The league probably would benefit from an anti-sexual harassment program, just like any business would. But Sterger isn’t Susan B. Anthony. She already said that her and her friends poked fun at Favre’s advancements, so to come out and demand that the league sets up an anti-sexual harassment program sounds fake.

That said, the thing that has been forgotten in all this is that Favre is a married man who shouldn’t have been sending inappropriate texts to anyone (uh, outside of his wife…if she’s into that stuff). And for him to ask her for a video of her masturbating is beyond inappropriate. (Whether she laughed it off or not.)

Years from now, when people look back on 2010, what will they remember as the defining sports moment? Uh, they can only pick one? We discovered that Tiger Woods likes to play the field and that Brett Favre doesn’t mind sending pictures of his anatomy to hot sideline reporters via text message. We found out that LeBron listens to his friends a little too much and that Ben Roethlisberger needed a serious lesson in humility. But we also learned that athletes such as Michael Vick and Josh Hamilton haven’t blown second chance opportunities (or third and fourth chances in the case of Hamilton). It was also nice to see a certain pitcher turn down bigger money so that he can play in a city that he loves.

We’ve done our best to recap the year’s biggest sports stories, staying true to tradition by breaking our Year End Sports Review into three sections: What We Learned, What We Already Knew, and What We Think Might Happen. Up first are the things we learned in 2010, a list that’s littered with scandal, beasts, a Decision and yes, even a little Jenn Sterger.

Contributors: Anthony Stalter, John Paulsen, Paul Costanzo, Drew Ellis and Mike Farley

Tiger Woods gets around.

We hesitate to put this under “golf” because the only clubs involved were his wife’s nine-iron hitting the window of his SUV and the various establishments where Tiger wined and dined all of his mistresses…over a dozen in all. This was the biggest story of the early part of the year, but it got to the point that whenever a new alleged mistress came forward, the general public was like, “Yeah, we get it. Tiger screwed around on his wife. A lot.” He has spent the rest of the year attempting to rebuild his once-squeaky clean image, but it’s safe to say, we’ll never look at Tiger the same way.

LeBron wilts when his team needs him most.

Say the words “LeBron” and “Game 5” in the same sentence and NBA fans everywhere know exactly what you’re talking about. In the biggest game of the season, LeBron looked disinterested, going 3-of-14 from the field en route to a 120-88 blowout at home at the hands of the Celtics. There were rumors swirling about a possible relationship between LeBron’s mom and his teammate, Delonte West, and there’s speculation that LeBron got that news before tipoff and that’s why he played so poorly. Regardless of the cause, LeBron played awful in that game, and it turned out to be his swan song in Cleveland as a member of the Cavaliers. Talk about leaving a bitter taste.

You can auction off your talented son’s athletic abilities and get away with it.

The NCAA set a strange precedent this season while dealing with the Newton family. The always inconsistent and completely morally uncorrupt NCAA decided in its infinite wisdom that despite discovering that Cecil Newton shopped his son Cam to Mississippi State for $180,000, and that is a violation of NCAA rules, that Cam would still be eligible because it couldn’t be proven that he knew about it. Conference commissioners and athletic directors around the country spoke out about the decision, while agent-wannabes and greedy fathers everywhere had a light bulb go off in their own heads: As long as we say the player doesn’t know about it, it could go off without a hitch. What was Cecil’s punishment in this whole thing? Limited access to Auburn for the last two games of the season. Easy with that hammer there, NCAA. Read the rest of this entry »

Straight out of the “Does anyone really care anymore?” files, the Huffington Post is reporting that Jenn Sterger might reveal the photos that Brett Favre sent her of his junk if the NFL does not punish the Vikings’ quarterback.

TMZ reported on Monday that Sterger’s manager, Phil Reese, said his client provided enough evidence to prove there was harassment.

“No matter what happens Jenn has all legal remedies, including going public … if the NFL doesn’t clear her name,” Reese reportedly said.

The NFL started its investigation of the alleged sexting scandal in October. Favre admitted to sending voicemails to the former TV host, but denied sending inappropriate photos.

Allison Torres, a friend of Sterger, reportedly said she was there when Sterger received the pictures.

Couple of things here:

1. Nobody wants to see Favre’s wrinkled junk mail.

2. Didn’t Deadspin already show the photos? Unless she has photos of him smiling and giving the camera a thumbs-up while holding his crotchel region, then what more is there to show?

And whom does she think she is trying to press the NFL into a corner? They’re not going to bow to her whims and do whatever she asks. They’re the NFL for cryin’ out loud.

She’s got four weeks to try and further her career with this story before Favre retires and then nobody officially cares anymore.