Maybe you’ve seen her on TV at a New York Giants football game. If you’re a season ticket holder, chances are you have run into her in the parking lot tailgating before a home game. Or, maybe you have come across her pictures on her web site, in the newspaper or inside magazines.
But, not many people know who Queens beauty Reby Sky is or the great lengths she goes to in order to cheer on her favorite team.
Sky, 22, moved to Tampa, FL three years ago, but the roughly 1,200 miles between her Tampa home and Giants Stadium was not about to keep her away from her team, and she was not going to settle for watching Big Blue play on TV. So, Sky got on a plane eight weekends during the season and scrounged up a ticket to every Giants home game.
“All of my money kind of went to the Giants, but it was worth it,” Sky said.
When she moved to Tampa, Sky met a guy, who was a Giants fan and happened to be a photographer. She said they were goofing around one day and he took some pictures of her in her Giants jersey that she posted on her MySpace page. The pictures were an instant hit so she decided to take some more photos in different Giants gear and start her own web site www.nygiantsgirl.com
Since the web site debuted, it has become a big hit with photos, blog entries and videos updated throughout the season. The site contains Sky’s analysis that she said is standard for the many Giants-related fan site, but hers is a little different.
“What differentiates mine is that I have the girly pictures and all that,” Sky said. “I bring a woman’s perspective to the stuff I write. I like to get girls involved in football as much as I can.”
For a typical Giants home game, Sky arrives at the stadium about five and a half hours before kickoff and goes around visiting all of the different tailgates.
“I talk smack a little and have a few beers,” Sky said. “There’s always a fight at an Eagles game.”
However, her experience checking in on the different tailgates has helped her come up with a new idea for her web site – a special on how to throw a kickass tailgate party. Sky will be posting videos on her web site on this topic, and she’s in talks with a popular TV show, which for this article will remain nameless, about doing a special on tailgating this fall.
But, that won’t be Sky’s only appearance on TV. For the past three months, MTV cameras have been following her around, and they plan to air a “True Life: I’m a Sports Fanatic,” special sometime in September or October.
“It was really, really weird,” Sky said. “You don’t really know how many ticks or how many strange things you do, but it was a good experience.”
Although she has only been going to games religiously for the past three years, she first started rooting for the Giants when she was four years old. Sky was looking at a machine where if you put a quarter in you would get a small football helmet as a prize.
“I was trying and trying for a New York team,” said Sky, whose family did not root for either the Giants or the Jets and weren’t big football fans altogether.
“I got a blue helmet, and that’s how I decided I was gonna be a Giants fan,” she said.
She used to watch games with her friends while she was growing up, but she noticed something was missing from her team.
“We don’t have cheerleaders or a mascot,” Sky said. “Every team has a crazy fan so I wanted to be that fan.”
Although she doesn’t consider herself in the class of the New York Jets’ “Fireman Ed,” people do recognize her.
“Most people don’t even know my name – it’s the crazy fan or the Giants girl or the fairy,” Sky said.
Her all-time favorite Giant is former defensive lineman Leonard Marshall, and her favorite current player is wide receiver Steve Smith. Although she couldn’t score a ticket to the Super Bowl in 2007 to watch her team knock off the undefeated New England Patriots, she hosted a huge party and celebrated the team’s victory. However, it’s not just the big games that get Sky emotional.
“I cry at every game win or lose,” she said.
But, that doesn’t mean her mood is the same after a win and a loss.
“If we lose a game I pretty much can’t talk to people for a while,” she laughed. “I don’t want to do anything – leave me alone for a few days.”
Sky plans to move back from Tampa Bay to Queens in the next month, and she’s already got her ticket to the home opener against the Washington Redskins. Being back in New York will undoubtedly make the travel to home games easier, but she will also try to make a few road games as well.
“As much as I can,” she said. “I’m not made of money unfortunately.”
