Warren Sapp was holding court around his locker at the old One Buc Place one afternoon. If memory serves, this was in 2000 or 2001. Sapp could be combative with the media but on this day he was in a decent mood, taking questions from a dozen or so reporters, including me.

A rookie reporter from Fox Sports Net/Florida squeezed her way to the front and launched into one of those 45-second preambles that TV reporters use before asking a question.

“Warren, the Tampa Bay defense is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….”

 Sapp cut her off. “What’s your question?”

 “It’s just, well,” she said, repeating her introduction.

 “Tell you what, Honey,” Sapp said, rolling his eyes, “when you figure out your question, come on back.”

To her credit, the reporter looked at her notes, waited for a few other queries to be addressed and then asked Sapp a precise, relevant question that he answered.

Sure, it helped that the reporter was an attractive young woman; Sapp could be brutal in dressing down typical (male) sports reporters.

But Erin Andrews, even at 22, was not your typical reporter. She knew her material, worked hard, and wasn’t about to back down from anyone. Her father, Steve Andrews, has a shelf-full of Emmys for his investigative work for Tampa’s NBC affiliate, and Erin carried herself with the same degree of confidence and professionalism. As an FSN reporter, Andrews worked alongside Sage Steele, another consummate professional, tireless worker, and future ESPN employee.

Andrews rose quickly through the sports television ranks, doing a terrific job as pre-game host for Tampa Bay Lightning and Atlanta Braves broadcasts. ESPN recognized her talent and brought her to Bristol.

Since then, the Worldwide Leader has squandered her skills, casting her as a sideline reporter. There’s no bigger waste of talent than employing anyone – male or female – in a role that boils down to asking, “Coach, what adjustments will you make at halftime?”

For years, CBS used Armen Keteyian in this role, which is like hiring Warren Buffett to balance your checkbook or Michael Jordan to oversee your fantasy basketball league. Keteyian is a stud investigative reporter best known for exposing corruption in government, business, and sports. But there he was, game after game, asking “Coach, what adjustments will you make at halftime?”

With Andrews, the first thing ESPN did was give her a makeover that made her look like a taller, blonder version of Bonnie Bernstein. Instead of giving Andrews legitimate assignments – or at least the type of busy work performed by Rachel Nichols, who like Keteyian is way overqualified to stand outside Brett Favre’s gate all day – they cast Andrews as sideline eye candy.

This was during the embarrassing era of Jill Arrington and Lisa Guerrero. Guerrero, you might recall, once asked the Jets’ Chad Pennington during a pre-game interview on Monday Night Football how he planned to get the ball to Laverneous Coles, who had just joined the Redskins.  

As for Arrington, I remember watching her patrol the sidelines at The Swamp in Gainesville for CBS with a TV IFB contraption marked “talent” strapped to the small of her back. That pretty much summed up how sports television executives viewed sideline reporters.

Still, Andrews embraced the gig. She seemed to be everywhere – college football, hoops, baseball, spelling bees – and managed to bring some dignity to the job. Long gone were her 45-second preambles, replaced by quick, relevant questions. She did self-deprecating radio/podcast interviews with Bill Simmons and Todd Wright, coming across as that slightly-geeky jock girl you knew in high school who later blossomed.

Andrews outlasted Arrington, Guerrero, Bernstein, and Melissa Stark. Still, ESPN rarely used her as a studio host, never gave her a chance to host SportsCenter or fill in on Jim Rome is Burning. Heck, given her popularity, professionalism, and ability to land interviews, couldn’t the powers that be in Bristol have given Andrews her own show?

If ESPN could create a Tonight Show-style program for such polarizing figures as Mike Lupica, Stephen A. Smith, and Jay Mohr, wouldn’t a New York-based Erin Andrews Show be worth a shot? (Heck, call it “EA Sports.”)

Instead, ESPN literally kept Andrews on the sidelines, “playing to the frat house crowd,” as USA Today’s Christine Brennan suggests. No matter how well Andrews did her job, it was tough to overcome the sideline eye candy stigma. Is it any wonder she was viewed as “talent” rather than a talent? Andrews recently called 911 to report paparazzi camped outside her Atlanta home, telling an operator she feels like “(expletive) Britney Spears.”

Would an Erin Andrews employed as a studio host or E:60 reporter have been the target of a peephole camera?

Andrews’ detractors point out that she rolls into baseball games she’s covering as if she’s part of the show, holding court around the batting cage and laughing it up with players in the clubhouse. That might be true, but that makes her no different than Chris Berman. At least Andrews seems to be gathering information for the broadcast. And while it’s true that Andrews wears sexy clothing to the ESPYs and other ESPN “events,” she’s merely part of an ESPN culture that focuses on making celebrities out of on-air talent.

Andrews apparently is on a month-long vacation. Good for her. Let’s hope that when she returns, ESPN starts taking advantage of her skills and experience, not just her “talent.”

Tim Tebow

I believe in freedom of religion. I also believe in freedom from religion. That’s why if you come to my door looking to push religion, don’t be surprised if I answer naked.

 After all, Adam and Eve were nude. Were it not for Satan the Snake tempting Eve with the apple, we’d be one big nudist world today.

When religious people come to my door quoting scripture, I throw some Genesis verses of Adam and Eve back at them, right about the time they’re recoiling from the sight of my pasty-white, naked body. (Okay, I’ve never done this. But I’m tempted.)

 I love a good religion debate as much as anyone. After all, I’m a survivor of all-boys Catholic school. When I watch Jeopardy, the easiest categories are not sports-related but anything having to do with the bible. Those Catholic priests pounded the trivia into us. (Thankfully, that’s  all they pounded into us!)

 But even the ultra-conservative Catholic school priests stressed that the bible was not to be taken literally word for word. We were taught, for instance, that Moses probably didn’t part the Red Sea; the Israelites just escaped during low tide.

We once were assigned to take a bible story and offer a realistic interpretation of what happened. I chose the famous tale of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding. You might recall how they ran out of wine toward the end of the reception. It was never a good idea to invite Jesus and his 12 disciples to a party. Those guys could pound.

 Jesus told the father of the bride to fill the empty jugs with water. The wedding guests, no doubt bombed, proclaimed it the best wine they ever had. “You saved the best wine for last,” the father tells Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and also in the plagiarized Gospels of Matthew and Mark, who were the Joe Bidens of their generation.

Is it not obvious that the guests were so far in the bag they didn’t notice that they were just drinking water? Haven’t we all done this to someone who has had too much to drink? Or had it done to us?

Which brings us to Tim Tebow. As recounted in last week’s Sports Illustrated, the talented, squaky-clean quarterback for the University of Florida is the son of a preacher who believes in a literal interpretation of the bible. He spends his summers doing missionary work overseas and also in prisons around Florida, including the notorious maximum-security state pen in Starke.

By all accounts, Tebow is an effective speaker, though he’s led a sheltered life of homeschooling, religion and football. Nothing against homeschooling, religion, and football, but what life experience does Tebow have to share? Admittedly, Starke probably houses more than a few ex-Gators, Seminoles, and Hurricanes, but still…

Even after covering pro and college sports for two decades, I’m still uncomfortable with athletes who wear religion on their sleeves. I’m a fairly religious person, I think, and several pro athletes go to my church. But there’s no correlation between religion and sports performance, even though athletes are quick to credit God after every success.

Does God not care about the losers? Just once I’d like to enter a losing locker room and hear a player or coach blame the Almighty.

“Let me tell you, the only way we squander that nine-point lead with two minutes to go is by divine intervention. I don’t know what my team has been doing away from the field, but we’re going to be spending some extra time in church this week.”

The former big league baseball player Dale Murphy, a devout Mormon, never pushed his agenda and seemed to keep religion and sports in the proper perspective.

 “God isn’t really interested in our batting averages,” he once said.

One other thought, Mr. Tebow. Given the recent news coming off of police blotters in Gainesville, it seems you don’t have to visit my front door or Starke Prison if you’re looking to save some souls.

Just stay in your own locker room.