ESPY’s show different sides of athletes

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The media tent at the ESPY awards was an interesting place on Wednesday, with sports and entertainment reporters asking a wide variety of questions to the athletes and entertainers that came in from the Nokia Theatre throughout the evening -- which led to a wide variety of answers.

Chris Johnson loves Twitter. The Tennessee Titans’ running back, who won the award for Best Breakthrough Athlete, thanked the social networking site in his acceptance speech, and later explained his devotion.

‘I love Twitter because when I was growing up as a little kid, they didn’t have things like this where you could follow the athletes that you love,’ he said. ‘The athletes were untouchable. Now they can follow us and see what we do in everyday life and see that we’re normal people.’

Supermodel Marisa Miller, who presented Johnson’s award, was up next and said what some sports reporters might have been thinking.

‘I feel like I should be an athlete or win something,’ she said. When asked which athlete she was most excited to meet, she responded, ‘LeBron’s here, right? He’s not?’

Extreme sport athlete Shaun White, winner of the Best Male Olympian award, explained one of his biggest fan bases.

‘I’m huge with grandmas,’ White said. ‘Everybody who approaches me says, ‘My Grandma loves you!’ So really I’m just doing it for the grandmas.’

Lindsey Vonn, who won Best Female Athlete and Best Female Olympian, was one of many athletes asked about a possible appearance on reality show ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ She said she would love to do it -- with one caveat.

‘I feel like I’m a pretty good dancer but my husband seems to differ on that subject,’ said Vonn (pictured above).

Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks might have the best off-season plans -- his turn with the Stanley Cup will come in mid-August and he said he plans to take the NHL trophy onstage and use it to drink margaritas with Jimmy Buffett.

-- Laura Myers