word games on MNF

From Tom Hoffarth with the LA Daily News...

NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya tries not to miss a trick. Regrettably, she did so on the first ESPN "Monday Night Football" telecast of the season. But who really noticed?

In a radio stunt that has progressed now into its fourth season, KSPN-AM (710) afternoon "Big Show" co-hosts Steve Mason and John Ireland have brought Tafoya on every Monday during the NFL season and fed her a word or phrase that they devilishly hope she can work into one of her live on-air reports...

The incentive for Tafoya to complete the not-so-top-secret task each week has been a $100 donation to the Humane Society of Minnesota, from either Ireland or Mason, based on Tafoya's love of animals. They estimate that since they started doing this in the 2004 season - even with a season interrupted by Tafoya giving birth to a son two years ago - more than $2,000 has made its way to the charity.

A game last year in Carolina, for example, got Mason and Ireland thinking about James Taylor songs ("Carolina In My Mind"), and the challenge to Tafoya was to work in a Taylor lyric. It was one of her most brilliant moments. During the snow-marred game, she did an injury update on a player who was cramping up and said: "Al and John, I've seen fire and I've seen rain, but I've never seen a guy get cramps in the snow." It even got the broadcasters to chuckle.

[A few weeks ago], it was "law and order," a phrase Mason and Ireland thought would be simple enough to squeeze in considering the police-blotter stained Cincinnati Bengals were facing the Baltimore Ravens.

"I failed," Tafoya said. "There were too many injuries to report on at the start of the game, and by the end it was such a close game and ... I failed."

Good clean American fun...