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Mickey Spagnola DallasCowboys.com Columnist February 12, 2008
IRVING, Texas - Now it's one thing to be on the cover of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Swimsuit Calendar for 2008. But how about also having your own spot, however small, on the cover of the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue which hit the newsstands on Tuesday? Yes, it's only February, but already it's been a very good year for Irving's own Christina Parker, the fourth-year Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader who not only shares the cover of the Cowboys Swimsuit Calendar with teammate Trisha Trevino but now also with first-time S.I. swimsuit cover girl and world-renowned model Marisa Miller. OK, the quite fetching photo of Miller gracing this year's cover with only beads serving as the top half of her bikini will steal everyone's attention. But still, it's not every day you are pictured with one foot on the bottom of the "S" in Sports and the other on the top of the "I" in Illustrated on a magazine cover circulating worldwide and in hot demand this time very year. Even if Parker's spot on the cover is so tiny only a mother would be able to spot her daughter up in the top left corner. So everywhere Miller goes promoting the Swimsuit Issue cover of S.I., so goes Parker. And this issue's cover was unveiled Monday night by David Letterman during The Late Show as a three-story billboard to a nationwide TV audience. Also, the magazine staged "Cover Revealing Viewing Parties" at 100 different locations across the country attended by thousands. That meant Parker also was featured prominently, if you look closely. Featuring NFL cheerleaders is a first for Sports Illustrated, which has branched out of late to include famous female athletes, famous male athletes and their wives and body-painting pictorials in the annual swimsuit issue. Never before had the magazine included a collection of NFL cheerleaders in the well-timed issue hitting the stands annually the middle of February when most of the country is blanketed with bone-chilling weather.
This section of the issue features 12 NFL cheerleaders, selected after going to New York back in June for a one-day photo shoot with the S.I. photography team. The cheerleaders posed in designed swimwear inspired by their uniform colors. And for Parker and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, it's one thing to be featured on a page in the NFL Cheerleaders' section of the issue. S.I. has devoted four pages to the debut of the NFL cheerleaders in its Swimsuit Issue, and has included cheerleaders from the Cowboys, Buccaneers, Chargers, Dolphins, Eagles, Falcons, Jaguars, Patriots, Raiders, Redskins and Texans (twins). But it's entirely another to be the chosen one highlighting one of the cover's subheads. Parker's small cutout figure calls attention to the headline at the top of the page above the magazine's logo: NFL Cheerleaders Make Their Swimsuit Debut. "It was a surprise Christina was on the cover, for sure," said Kelli Finglass, long-time director of the DCC. "Just to have your image on the cover is a very pleasant surprise." Being in the spotlight is nothing new for Christina Beth Parker, who not only shares the cover of this year's DCC Swimsuit Calendar dressed in her cheerleading uniform, but also graces the month of September, the photo taken on a Riviera Maya beach in Mexico. The 22-year-old who helps run and teach a family-owned dance studio previously had been selected for the month of March in the DCC's 2007 calendar and December of 2005.
Not bad for a young lady "kind of known as the goof on the squad," Finglass says, and who claims in her DCC bio her favorite clothing item to wear would be "my USMC sweatpants." As part of the being selected for the S.I. Swimsuit Issue, Parker, along with the rest of the NFL Cheerleaders, are each featured in a 25-photo display on the magazine's website (SI.com/swimsuit). The girl the DCC has nicknamed "Izzy" from Grey's Anatomy since she resembles Katherine Heigl, Parker will also be going global. The Swimsuit Issue will be distributed in more than 10 foreign countries, including China, Czech Republic, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain and Taiwan. And the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue premieres 10 p.m. (CST) Saturday on TNT. So forever more, wherever there is a 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover, there will be Parker, too.
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