Favorite SI covers

Goren and the circa 1974 bloodied rugby player in some Broadway play may be the all-time WTF covers.
I'm old enough to remember the Sidney Moncrief one that haunts Bill Simmons. And there was a 1971 cover with Steve McQueen on a motorcycle that was pretty badass, too.

 

The empty seats? Mangino standing next to his orange doppelganger?

 

The first and only time Ohio University will ever get on the cover of SI.

 

I used that cover as a visual aid for my senior thesis my last semester of college. My final paper was on censorship in newspaper photography, not porn or nudity, but graphic photos like that. I interviewed a bunch of news editors. Two other visual aids I used were a three-shot sequence that the Herald-Examiner ran on a guy who jumped off a building. 1-on top of the building. 2-a mid-air shot. 3-dude crumpled on the ground. Another was when Bobby Valentine crashed into the wall at Anaheim Stadium. Photo showed his leg bending at the hip, knee and ankle ... and also midway between the knee and the ankle.
To me, that one flunked the "Choke on your Cherrios" test.

 

Don't know if it was one of the red-x'd out images on my machine, but the Super Bowl XIV cover with Stallworth about to gather in the game-winning touchdown is a classic.

Being an Angels fan, I would probably use the 2002 World Series cover as one of mine if I did this, but that was one mediocre photo they put on the cover for that. John Lackey identified in the blurb when you could barely make him out in a long shot of a bunch of guys jumping the dugout rail after the last out. Whoever picked that photo for the cover was really mailing it in that day.

Oh, and as far as wordless covers, I believe the U.S. hockey one was the first, although there have been a couple since (Mantle was one after his death). The Royals World Series one had "A Royal Crown" as the hed.

 

Was about to post that one ... the last exclamation mark for the Super Steelers:



Always loved the Bird-Magic battling for position in the low post and the Miracle On Ice covers as well.

And there's this Kareem cover, which actually folded out and had a headline on the foldout portion, but I can't find a full, folded out picture of it:

 

I miss the feeling as a kid of pulling SI out of the mailbox and not putting it down till I had practically read the whole thing. I can honestly say I haven't glanced at an SI other than the Swimsuit Issue in a good 15-20 years.

It used to be the only game and the best game going as far as national sports reading. Now it's fallen victim to the Internet Age the same as newspapers have. Sadly, I can see the day within five years where it folds.

And, ahem, this ...

... is the most memorable cover of my teen years.

 

This was one of their finest issues:

 

what about the Cheryl Tiegs seethru. almost positive it wasn't the cover but i do remember it was in SI.

http://findthefox.com/images/cheryl-tiegs-1978.jpg

NSFW

 

I can't copy covers where I'm at, but my two favorites from a season's worth are the ""44-0" cover after the Bears beat the Cowboys in 1985 and the SB preview cover with a picture of Mike Singletary and a diagram of the 46 defense.

 

The Tiegs photo was in the first swimsuit issue after my parents bought me a subscription (which would last more than 20 years). It was the 1978 issue with the Brazilian babe on the cover.