Deadspin "Is An ESPN Columnist Scamming People On The Internet? "

(Via Deadspin)

"A few weeks ago, ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips concluded her weekly "Junk Mail" column with a question from an unnamed reader:

Rumor has it "Sarah Phillips" isn't a real person and this column is being produced by a ghost writer. Is this true?

Phillips responded:

I'm flattered to join the ranks of Barack Obama, Elvis Presley, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Tupac Shakur as the subject of a great American conspiracy theory! (I would have added Biggie Smalls to the list, but I'm westside 'til I die.) In any event, I'm either an alien life form brought to Earth to keep track of Jose Canseco, or I'm a woman named Sarah Phillips who writes sports-related columns and blogs. You decide. In the meantime ... taaake meee tooo yooour leeeadeeer.

Is Sarah Phillips for real? Thirteen months ago, she was an unknown message-board participant at Covers.com, a gambling website. Then Covers plucked her from the boards and gave her a weekly column, sight unseen. Five months after that, she was tapped by Lynn Hoppes, an editor for ESPN.com, to write a weekly column for ESPN's Page 2—once the home of writers like David Halberstam, Ralph Wiley, and Hunter S. Thompson, and which has now been rebranded as ESPN's Playbook. The swiftness of her ascent gave her that weird sort of internet half-celebrity whereby she became moderately famous before anyone really knew who she was."

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