Life magazine ran a page featuring me and three other girls that was clearly the precursor of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For a while I was on the cover of every Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, which was regarded as the pinnacle of success in America.
I never thought I'd make the pages of 'Sports Illustrated', because I've always been skinny.
I'm kind of the model that everyone thought would always be the Guess, 'Sports Illustrated' girl. Then, when I started to do high fashion stuff... people were like, 'Oh, so we can have a girl with, like, thighs and a butt in a Tom Ford campaign. Cool.'
The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.
I'm not getting recognized because I posed in a swimsuit edition of some magazine, but because of what I do on the field, and that's important to me.
You see, there weren't these magazines like 'Heat' in my day. Always waiting to trip up these pretty girls and make them seem something horrible, something to make them look stupid and small and ugly and disgusting.
Very few women get asked to be in the swimsuit issue, and I'm really proud to be one of so many beautiful and empowering women.
After my first 'Sports Illustrated' cover, I felt terrible about myself for a solid month. People deal with models like they are children. They think they can pull one over on you. I'm not a toy; I'm a human. I'm not here to be used.
When you have a magazine like 'Vogue,' you know a lot of kids are going to follow your pictures.
I have been so lucky to have the support of 'InStyle' magazine. My first big women's fashion story was for them.