Getty Image
Every NFL player dreams of winning a Super Bowl or earning Most Valuable Player honors, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest being named the “Sexiest Athlete Alive” is pretty low on their list of priorities. With that said, Rich Gannon should’ve won the award bestowed by People Magazine in 1998 only to see Elvis Grbac swoop in and take the crown thanks to a perplexing mixup.
No one really expected much out of Rich Gannon when he was selected out of the University of Delaware in the fourth round of the 1987 NFL Draft. While he was initially scooped up by the Patriots, they wanted the quarterback to switch to a different position, and he was eventually traded to the Vikings.
The QB was the definition of a late bloomer, as he spent over a decade struggling to get a permanent starting job before finally getting his big break with the Raiders under the guidance of Jon Gruden around the turn of the millennium.
Prior to that point, Gannon had shown flashes of brilliance with the Kansas City Chiefs after stepping up to replace the injured Grbac in 1997. The team found itself with a bit of a QB controversy on its hands when the latter returned the following season—as was the case with the aforementioned publication that inadvertently handed out the honor to the wrong guy.
How Elvis Grbac was accidentally named the “Sexiest Athlete Alive” over Rich Gannon
Getty Image
When People dropped its “Sexiest Man Alive” issue on November 16, 1998 (Harrison Ford won that particular title), Grbac was the first person to admit he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d been chosen to sit down for a photo shoot, saying, “There’s guys in that locker room that are 10 times better-looking than I am. It’s just one of those things. I’m dumbfounded by it.”
According to a former People employee who was on the conference call that was used to determine the “Sexiest Athlete Alive,” the recipient wasn’t actually referred to by name but simply as “the Kansas City quarterback.” While the person who said he was “pretty hot” was talking about Gannon, the fact that the Chiefs had split QB duties between him and Grbac created some confusion that wasn’t cleared up in time.
A series of miscommunications led to the outlet reaching out to the franchise to arrange a sitdown with their quarterback, and it appears their public relations department assumed they were referring to Grbac, who had started the first game of the season before being sidelined with an injury.
People realized something was amiss when the photographs from the interview arrived at the office, and it didn’t take long for the staff to determine they’d targeted the wrong man. However, they agreed it would be “too mean” to reverse course so far along in the process, which led to them running a story that was capped off with the following line from Grbac’s wife: “His personality makes him sexy.”
As far as I’m concerned, a win’s a win, and while Grbac made it clear he didn’t want to discuss the honor after receiving it, I’d still brag about that for the rest of my life.