Hottest trend in lingerie: neck braces

Lingerie Bowl IX is set for 1 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday at Orleans Arena. Admission is free, but there will be a $20 coverage charge with a two-drink minimum.

OK, now we can get on with the rest of the story.

This is the second straight season the Lingerie Bowl will be played in Las Vegas -- admission isn't free, but reserved seats start at a reasonably priced $15 -- and the fourth or fifth time I think I've written about it. So the supply of short straws I have stashed under the assignment desk seems to be working.

Lingerie Bowl IX will look a lot like Lingerie Bowl VIII, beginning with the teams, the Temptation and the Passion, which are the same as last year. So are the "uniforms" they will be wearing, which, to most Lingerie Football League fans, is much more important.

The Temptation won 26-25 last year, and though I don't remember how the winning touchdown was scored, I do recall with crystal clarity this one play when one of the Los Angeles Temptation -- never to be confused with Eddie Kendricks or David Ruffin of the Motown Temptations -- pulled down one of the Philadelphia Passion, without her written consent, by her bikini bottoms. And there was a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. And the result reminded me of the old days when a TV repairman would bend over to fix your Zenith, only a hundred times better.

But the Lingerie Bowl has evolved. It really has. The first five or six were mostly about supermodel wannabes parading around in their dainty things as if they were trying out for an invitation to the Playboy Mansion grotto. The football sort of looked like the Puppy Bowl on the Animal Planet channel, with the exception that cocker spaniel running backs do not get breast implants and most have their shots.

Yes, there still is a certain amount of sex appeal involved in the pregame hype. For instance, during Wednesday's Lingerie Bowl IX media day, Chloe Butler, No. 7 on the Temptation, and Lauren LaBella, No. 4 on the Passion, posed for photos where they pulled each other's hair. This is something one would never see Tom Brady and Eli Manning do. And when Robin Leach, the emcee, asked one of the coaches which players we should keep our eyes on, I thought Robin was going to say "all of them" before the coaches had a chance to respond.

But once the game starts, it's all about the football. It really is. If it wasn't about the football, would Marirose Roach, No. 6 on the Passion, have been wearing a neck brace?

Roach was injured in last week's playoff game against the Tampa Breeze, which apparently blocks and tackles with much more ferocity than the Tampa Bay Bucs.

"The doctors tell me I have to stay in this brace for six weeks," Roach said. "After that, I'll have another evaluation, and then they'll tell me whether or not I can start rehab."

Sounds like real football to me.

Roach is typical of this new breed of Lingerie Football player. She's 31 years old, 5 feet 4 inches, 135 pounds of muscle, and somebody said you can bounce a dime off her rear end. (Unlike Robin Leach, I didn't sneak a look.)

She played a bunch of sports growing up, excelling at two in college. Roach played soccer and ran track at Temple, won a few gold ribbons for the Owls' 4x400- and 4x100-meter relay teams, and has a picture of herself with Bill Cosby, who also ran track for Temple, from the Penn Relays to prove it.

She went to Temple Law School, became an attorney and has her own firm in Philadelphia specializing in civil litigation.

You won't find a lot of women with those kind of credentials hanging around the Playboy Mansion grotto.

"I think why this has gotten so large is because of the athleticism," Roach says. "These girls just want to come out and play ball. The Lingerie Football side of it does fill the seats. But when people come, they are more impressed by the game, the athletic talent we have, and not the uniforms."

But I must confess that I am still impressed by the uniforms, though I shudder to think how Logan Mankins might look in one.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.