Awkward!

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On Thursday the Lake County News-Sun, a local paper in Chicago’s northern suburbs, had a little blurb about me.

The accompanying photo, from my high school track and field days, is a real doozy.

Now that’s the face of a winner, right?!

I have no choice but to chalk it up to my awkward phase. And I must point out that it’s very difficult to look attractive whilst long jumping. See Exhibits A-D…

Fortunately the blurb was actually quite nice…

■ Sports-talk radio station “The Score” is celebrating 20 years on the air this week.

But the guess here is that the Chicago sports-talk radio personality most likely to go national real soon works at the other station in town — WMVP/ESPN-1000.

Sarah Spain first showed up in the sports pages of this newspaper in the late-1990s as a track star at Lake Forest High School.

She was one of the county’s best in track and field, with the emphasis on “field.”

Her senior year, she was a state qualifier in the discus, the long jump and the triple jump.

Fast-forward to 2012, and she’s now strong as the sports-news reader on AM-1000 during the morning sports-talk shows.

She’s even logged some time as a talk-show host on weekends and when regulars are on vacation, though her strong suit is definitely reading the sports news.

Which, at the ESPN “Mother Ship” in Bristol, Conn., is what the cable-TV network is always on the lookout for.

Don’t be shocked if she’s behind a “SportsCenter” desk there sometime in 2012.

I guess I’ll have to forgive them for the photo…