Sports Beat

Did you catch Erin Brodie's money grab on NBC's reality show For
Love or Money? She beat out 14 women to win the affection of
bachelor Rob Campos, then traded him in for $1 million. It's no
secret where Brodie gets her competitive streak: Her dad is
former 49ers quarterback and Senior PGA tour golfer John Brodie.
"He said I should totally do the show," says Erin, 30, who signed
up because the auditions were held next door to the San Francisco
software company where she worked. Now Erin--whose
brothers-in-law are Bears quarterback Chris Chandler and Larry
Stefanki, Tim Henman's coach--is playing double or nothing. She
gave up the $1 million to be the lone bachelorette on Money 2.
She'll win $2 million if the bachelor she picks from a pool of 15
decides to hang on to her. Money 2 has finished taping, and while
Erin can't say what happened (the show airs Mondays at 9), she
tells SI she is moving to L.A. to be near her family and look for
a new job. She wouldn't mind getting into sports--she played
tennis as a freshman at USC--and broadcasting might be a natural
fit for the daughter of the man who announced six Super Bowls.
Says Brodie, "My dad used to drag me into the press box when I
was five."

Gabrielle Reece has been getting some extra weight behind her
swing. The 33-year-old beach volleyball legend who took up golf
three years ago with an eye toward qualifying for the LPGA tour
is expecting her first child at the end of September. The wife of
Laird Hamilton, the world's top big-wave surfer, added 18 pounds
to her 6'3", 160-pound frame and says her first six months of
pregnancy has been "a breeze." She's still playing golf about
five times a week--sometimes with Butch Harmon, Tiger Woods's
swing coach--and shooting around 80. Reece says she's looking
forward to golfing, postdelivery, and figures the game will allow
for some mother-child bonding. "When I'm learning to chip and
putt, the baby can be learning to walk."

Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend, got
a look at the movie that her book inspired in some pretty heady
company: George W. Bush invited Hillenbrand to the White House on
Monday to watch the film. "They gave us boxes of M&M's," says
Hillenbrand. "They've got the presidential seal on them, and
they're red, white and blue." ... On the other hand, don't expect
to see the story of Lovetostrawfly at your local cineplex. The
3-year-old brown mare, owned and bred by country crooner Lyle
Lovett, was entered in the Bayer Legend Texas Challenge, a stakes
race at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston on July 12.
Unfortunately for the man who wrote the song Which Way Does That
Old Pony Run?, the answer, in this case, was "not very fast." The
horse, who had two seconds in seven starts, finished in seventh
place.... French-born soccer star Eric Cantona, (a two-time
English player of the year with Manchester United) retired in
1997 at age 31 to become an actor and has refused to be
discouraged by reviews like this from a British critic: "In his
first starring part in 1998, in Mookie, he was comprehensively
out-acted by the chimpanzee in the title role." Now Cantona is in
L'Outremangeur (The Overeater), for which he gained 28 pounds,
then donned a fat suit to play an obese cop in love with a
murderess. Cantona's performance has been roundly hailed. One
French critic called it "touching, even profoundly moving."

COLOR PHOTO: PAUL DRINKWATER/NBC PHOTO (BRODIE) Her Daddy's a QB

COLOR PHOTO: STEFANO PALTORA/AMERICAN SOLAR CHALLENGE (CAR) PICTURE THIS Is this the exit for Venus? This alien shape is actually the CATalyst, a solar-powered car built by students and faculty at Kansas State. It was competing in the American Solar Challenge, a "rayce" for vehicles of its ilk that covers 2,300 miles of Route 66, from Chicago to Claremont, Calif. Cars can go 65 mph--rain or shine--but obviously not during rush hour in Joplin, Mo. My kingdom for a solar-powered horn!

COLOR PHOTO: EZRA SHAW/GETTY IMAGES (MCENROE)

THIS WEEK'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE
A Las Vegas company is charging men $10,000 to compete in
organized hunts in which they shoot naked women with paintball
guns.

THEY SAID IT

JOHN MCENROE
Tennis Hall of Famer, on current ATP player Wayne Ferreira, who
is leading a breakaway players' union: "Without even knowing what
his points are, I'd say he has some good points."