Living the Dream
Playmate Jaime Edmondson just may be the hottest sports fan
you'll ever meet.
By Elizabeth Beddall | Photography courtesy of Playboy
Jaime
Edmondson can barely get a word in between the barks.
She's packing up her car for an hour-long roadtrip to
the Tampa Bay Times Forum and the three dogs she
shares with boyfriend and star slugger Evan Longoria
seem cheesed about the exit.
But much like the schedule of her pro-athlete partner,
modeling, she explains, is characterized by long
stretches of work followed by a chunk of downtime. And
as she preps to pick up her girlfriends, with whom
she'll be watching the Lightning play a home game
against the Bruins, one truth rises over the din:
Edmondson is in off-season.
"I
was in the 11th grade the first time I went to a
hockey game," she says. "I can definitely say
that watching it in person, that's when it
became exciting for me."
"I do have a very feisty personality, I'm
definitely an alpha type female," the 5'8"
stunner adds. "So I was like, 'Oh, this is an
awesome sport. You're telling me you get to beat
the crap out of someone and your only punishment
is that you get to sit in a box for five
minutes? Perfect.'"
It's that same do-or-die disposition that helped
earn the former Miami Dolphins cheerleader a
spot on reality TV phenomenon The Amazing Race
not once, but twice, when she, along with
partner and pal Cara Rosenthal, was selected to
return for an all-star 18th season.
Fans recognized Edmondson as the strikingly
beautiful and quick-tempered redhead whose
ill-fated taxi ride had originally cost her the
million bucks in the final episode of season 14.
Heterosexual males who happened to flip past CBS
would also recognize her, come January 2010, as
the decade's first Playboy Playmate.
"They had offered Cara and I a double pictorial
after the first season and she turned it down
because she was going to law school," she says.
"They wrote me back and said, 'Well Hef wants to
know what you would think about being a
Playmate?'"
Fast-forward to the present and the 33-year-old
is now a bona fide Bunny (see her sporting
green, floppy ears on the related Wikipedia
page's main photo) and a V.I.P. guest of one
larger-than-life Los Angeles address.
"The first time I walked into the Playboy
mansion I saw him standing in the dining room,"
says Edmondson of robed renegade Hugh Hefner.
"What was surreal about it all was that it was
all kind of normal. The front door wasn't
locked. He introduced himself, welcomed me in
and just set me loose."
Having made her passion for play clear from the
get-go, it wasn't long before the Playboy posse
approached her with the idea of sharing her
athletic inclinations.
She is now the proud author of Play by Playmate
-- a weekly blog published on the magazine's
website about the latest happenings in baseball,
basketball, hockey, and don't forget...
"Football," proclaims
the fervent Miami Dolphins fan. "It always comes first. I grew up every
single Sunday watching football. It was just something that was part of my
lifestyle growing up as a child."
Raised
in Bartow, Florida by a family of cops, Edmondson hitched a wagon to
another male-dominated world along her way. After graduating from Florida
Atlantic University with a degree in criminal justice, this tough-as-nails
knockout did a two-year stint on the other side of the state as a night
shift police officer in Boca Raton.
"I don't think that at this point I'd be able to go back to it," she
laughs. "I don't know if any department would want to take me on."
"But my dream as a little girl was to be an undercover spy. Even now when
I see action movies and all these girls playing government officials, I
feel jealous. That is still what my heart desires. That's still what I
want to be when I grow up."
If being able to call yourself a reality star, world traveller, successful
model, professional cheerleader, police officer, Playboy Bunny, and
blogger by your early 30s is any indication of one's ability to cross off
bucket list bullet points, chances are we'll see this tall, feisty redhead
flashing the bad guys her CIA credentials soon enough.
"I've learned people should follow their dreams because they do not know
what can come of them," she says. "I'm currently living a dream I didn't
even know I had. I couldn't imagine it any other way."
Raised
in Bartow, Florida by a family of cops, Edmondson hitched a wagon to
another male-dominated world along her way. After graduating from Florida
Atlantic University with a degree in criminal justice, this tough-as-nails
knockout did a two-year stint on the other side of the state as a night
shift police officer in Boca Raton. 