Sports Ilustrated Swimsuit Cover: Alex Morgan Hotter Than Kate Upton

First, major congratulations to Kate Upton for making the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Cover for 2012. That’s a major achievement, but also not hard to see in the works.

Second, while Ms. Upton is certainly a sexy and beautiful model, a fresh face, former Cal Berkeley and now U.S. Women’s Soccer Star Alex Morgan, who’s also in the magazine is hotter. But back to Upton.

This, her selection, was in the works a year ago, when Sports Illustrated Editor M.J. Day took a series of photos of Kate Upton being herself on a plane ride to Las Vegas, and posted them via Twitter. The best one of them showed her with a glass of beer between her breasts. Too wild.

The photos were seen by many and gave Upton a new visibility she would not have seen post-Internet. Here’s my video gushing about Upton’s Las Vegas candids:

While Upton’s certainly the kind of woman a guy would love to hang with in Las Vegas, I actually met Alex Morgan in Sin City. The setting was the Panasonic / MySpace / NBC Olympics Press Conference held during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2012), and where Ms. Morgan, along with teammate Heather O’Reilly and the legendary Brandi Chastain, were guests there to promote the collaboration.

A fan of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), I had to ask both she and Ms. O’Reilly about saving WPS. In providing an intelligent response, we see that both Morgan and O’Reilly are about more than just looking good, which is the point of my take here.

Nothing at all against Ms. Upton, but I think it’s time women athletes graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition. Alex Morgan’s SI photos are every bit the show-stoppers that Kate Upton’s are, and would certainly stop traffic on Times Square in New York. Moreover, and while Upton rides horses (as my YouTube commenters have reminded me), this is an Olympics year, and Morgan and Team USA Women’s Soccer’s headed to London; what better way to show support than having Morgan on the cover.

Ok, it didn’t happen, and I’m not upset about it, just saying it’s about time we change our view of what makes a hot woman to one that incorporates the female athlete. I’m still stinging from the way Hope Solo was treated on Dancing With The Stars 2011, when she was told she was too muscular. We have to literally wage war against such a point of view.

Fortunately, I think we’re making some headway in this. Recently, Georgia Cheerleader Anna Watson appeared on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts because she’s a wholesome, lovely hotness of woman who’s also obviously strong. She’s got biceps – no doubt. In fact, her arms got her a national presence thanks to GMA.

(And I have my own take on the whole deal about Anna taking steroids. I think someone was pretending to represent a modeling agency to dupe Anna into a $75,000 contract, but as a kind of online muscle model. More on that later.)

Again, this is not against Kate Upton, just a push for her and other models to, well, show some muscle to go with those looks. Be strong and hot, not skinny and cute.

Stay tuned.