Featured Columnists:

Twitter: StilettoSportsJ
Myspace: StilettoSetSports

Name: Jennifer Taglione
Birthday: August 27.
Age: A lot older than I look.
Hometown: Albany, NY
Current Home: Sunny Sarasota, Fl
Fave TV Shows: DWTS, Idol, Grey’s, Fringe, Scrubs, OTH, Top Chef, Project Runway
Fave American Idol: Daughtry & David Cook
Fave Sports Teams: Um…..can I come back to this one?

My Experience & Qualifications to Run a “Sports” Magazine:

• Four years exp. as Senior Editor for college newspaper.
• Internship at local NBC affiliate’s sports division for six months about 10+ years ago in high school.
• 15 years stalking crushing on basketball players.
• I have achieved Pro Status in Tennis, Golf and Baseball. It was on Wii Sports, but that count’s doesn’t it?

In My Own Words

A guy at our Go Tampa Bay party back in October was talking to me and looking me up and down (I was wearing the cutest dress and my fabulous pair of silver shoes I got on sale for my birthday at TJ Maxx. They are Tahari and…I digress, sorry). He was a tad belligerent when he asked me “What makes YOU so qualified to be a sports writer.” I feel bad, but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing—therefore spraying beer all over him.

I am not qualified to be a sports writer, nor do I claim to be one. I’m just a girl who happens to know a lot of random information about a variety of sports. Most of the time I don’t utilize this information but there are these rare occassions when it comes out, much to the shock of any guy in ear shot.

Ask me about my qualifications as a fashion writer, on the other hand, and I will tell you that I have been a certified shopaholic for well over 25 years, since I first learned how to say “charge it.”  I have four closets in my room, two for clothes, one for purses and one for shoes. Well okay, the purse one is not in my room, it’s the former linen closet in the hallway directly outside my door. I digress, again. My bad.

I am also totally addicted to shoes, especially really hot stilettos. A while back, my friends and I were actually called “The Stiletto Set” whenever we were out because you would never see us in flats. It broke our hearts a bit when the ballet flat trend hit so hard.

I do admit (reluctantly) to having somewhat of a background in sports. And yes, I’ve been a fan of basketball  for about 15 years. Ever since I developed a crush on this boy on the JV basketball team in high school.From there I learned that the NBA is like a harvesting field of hot guys!

And then someone turned me on to college basketball. Wow!

Once a year in March I tend to get a little crazy for college basketball. They pack 64 games into 10 days. Do you know how many hot guys that is? It’s a bit of an overload for the senses.

I was also coerced into writing about sports for four years in college for our school newspaper. We were very short-staffed on writers and no one wanted to write sports. I had a lot of friends on the teams so, lucky me, I was the chosen one. But I learned a lot about hockey, rugby and softball. All of which I promptly forgot when I graduated.

But after 15 years of sports exposure, some of it must have seeped into my brain because I will admit, I am full of all sorts of weird sports trivia.

Now don’t start thinking I’m a sports fan, because I’m not. I have a lot of girlfriends that are die-hard fanatics for their teams. (If I mention the Red Sox to Gina, Megan or Michelle I swear they start foaming at the mouths because you never, ever, ever talk about the Red Sox to Yankees fans, or vice versa) and they know A LOT about their sports.

But I also have a lot of girlfriends that don’t know the first thing about any sport and “watching sports” to them means watching Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance.

Me? I’m in the middle. I’m all for a live game of anything—b’ball, football, rugby, horse racing, bocce, even baseball!  And I can be strapped into a seat and forced to watch sports on t.v., with only a minimum of bitching and moaning. But I’d rather be watching Dancing with the Stars!

Oh, about that Fave Sports Teams question….
NBA: Boston Celtics
College Basketball: Kansas Jayhawks
NFL: Arizona Cardinals
College Football: still undecided but thinking about giving Gator Nation a try
Baseball: Determined to be the only person allowed to like Red Sox, Yankees & Rays all at the same time

Feel free to contact me at princessjennifer AT stilettosetsports DOT com