Strange story about former U.S. Olympic middle-distance runner
Suzy Favor Hamilton: She worked as an escort in Las Vegas for the past
year.
The story belongs to thesmokinggun.com, which quotes Favor Hamilton extensively.
Of local interest is that the Big Ten's female athlete of the
year award is named after the former Wisconsin star, 44. She won the
award in 1988-90, then had it named after her in 1992.
• List of Suzy Favor female athlete of the year winners
The Big Ten's award for male athlete of the year is named after Jesse Owens.
The Smoking Gun story says Favor Hamilton, who has a husband and a
7-year-old daughter, began working as an escort last December. She
charged $600 for one hour and $6,000 for a day.
After the story was posted this afternoon, the Twitter account @favorhamilton tweeted the following:
"I realize I have made highly irrational choices and I take full
responsibility for them. I am not a victim here and knew what I was
doing. I was drawn to escorting in large part because it provided many
coping mechanisms for me when I was going through a very challenging
time with my marriage and my life. It provided an escape from a life
that I was struggling in. It was a double life.
"I do not expect people to understand, but the reasons for doing
this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to
depression. As crazy as I know it seems, I never thought I would be
exposed, therefore never hurting anybody.
"I have been seeking the help of a psychologist for the past few
weeks and will continue to do so after I have put things together.
"I cannot emphasize enough how sorry I am to anyone I have hurt
as a result of my actions and greatly appreciate the support from family
and those closest to me. I fully intend to make amends and get back to
being a good mother, wife, daughter, and friend."