Sports Beat

A calendar featuring NFL cheerleaders in their underwear has just come out, and all we can say is, Thongs for the memories. The 2002-03 Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders Lingerie Calendar reminds us that last year two former Eagles cheerleaders filed a lawsuit, later joined by 100 more former Eagles cheerleaders, alleging that visiting NFL players had peeked into their dressing room at Veterans Stadium by drilling holes through a door. Doesn't this project contradict the spirit of that ongoing suit? Absolutely not, says cheerleader and December 2003 model Amanda Morris (left), who explained, "One has nothing to do with the other. None of us was here then, and most of us didn't even know about the lawsuit." Besides, it's "something beautiful, very tasteful," says Christina Fuller, who appears topless in January 2003, albeit with her chest covered by the inspirational book The Road Less Traveled. "It's not some kind of low-class calendar." The Eagles' players, for their part, are supportive. "I'm out there in white spandex every Sunday while millions of people watch," says offensive lineman John Welbourn. "Why shouldn't cheerleaders be dressed in lingerie in a calendar?"

?After sending tremors through the track community with his declaration in last month's Genre magazine that he is homosexual, U.S. indoor 800-meter champ Derrick Peterson has reversed course. On Aug. 13 he issued a statement saying he's straight. What's going on here? That's what Cyd Zeigler, the sports editor for Genre, a gay men's monthly, is wondering. "Having spent two days with him, I don't believe a word he's saying now," says Zeigler, who met Peterson when the runner was in L.A. to pose for photos that accompanied the story. In the article Peterson said that Adidas, his sponsor, supported his decision to come out "I like men and women," he said, adding, "I am definitely not heterosexual." In his retraction—which came after a rush of media requests for interviews—Peterson said that he was going through an "experimental phase" at the time of the Genre interview and that he had now "determined with certainty that I am not homosexual." He also posted an explanation to the running website letsrun.com, saying that he'd lied (his word) to Genre because "I was upset that people of color were not getting equal representation in the 'alternative sexuality' areas." Peterson, who according to his agent is currently competing in Europe, was unavailable for comment to SI.

?Country star and inveterate railbird Toby Keith—whose single Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue recently topped the country charts—is going from The Angry American (the subtitle of the song) to the All American. Last Thursday at Ruidoso (N.Mex.) Downs, Keith's 2-year-old colt, The Down Side, qualified for the $2 million All American Futurity, America's richest quarter-horse race. The race will go off on Labor Day at Ruidoso. "He's a nice colt," says Keith, who with his co-owners paid $47,000 for The Down Side last year. "If he has a clean trip, he ought to be tough." Though he's new to quarter horses, Keith has raced thoroughbreds for seven years, breeding and training them at Dream Walkin' Farm, the spread he owns near his home in Norman, Okla.