Tuesday, July 13, 1999 | 9:19 a.m.
What's a tall, handsome, Harvard-educated hardbody doing in a place like Las Vegas?
Well, if you believe Cosmopolitan magazine's Summer 1999 issue, 23-year-old Jay Snowden is searching for the perfect woman.
That's right, ladies -- the man Mom's dying for you to bring home for Sunday dinner has been out there all along, toiling away as a slot performance manager for Harrah's hotel-casino. No rings on his finger, kids calling him Daddy nor even a steady to warm his well-muscled throwing arm (yes, this cum laude grad was even Harvard's starting quarterback three years in a row).
So what gives?
How could any right-minded, pretty young thing overlook this square-jawed Ivy Leaguer? Perhaps he's training his hazel eyes on the priesthood, right? Or maybe reeling from some egotistical wench's rejection?
Hardly. This young man is focused on a career right now. His sights are set on climbing the corporate ladder. Not that he wouldn't entertain the possibility of finding Ms. Right one day; rather, it seems, he's a proverbial victim of circumstance -- brains, brawn and bachelorhood.
All three were among the criteria Cosmo was on a mission to find when they launched their search for America's most eligible hunks, one from every state, for their fourth annual "All About Men" edition.
Cosmo ran a blurb on their website inviting women everywhere to send in photos and a bio of their candidates -- brothers, neighbors, friends. The magazine also solicited help directly, state by state.
"I was told that Cosmo wanted to find someone from a casino, so they contacted the public relations person at casinos in Vegas, Tahoe, Reno and Laughlin, and that person in turn sent them a couple of pictures and biographies," Snowden said. "I was one of three people (Harrah's) sent in."
Cosmo received thousands of submissions. Snowden was notified March 30 -- his birthday -- that he'd been chosen.
"These aren't models. They might be aspiring models, but they are the guy next door -- a guy who's approachable and accessible," said Beth Nussbaum of Dan Klores Associates, the magazine's publicists. "Cosmo didn't want someone famous, because that's ridiculous. How could a woman who sees them know she'll ever get to meet him? These are regular guys."
And how does Snowden feel about the whole thing?
"I just find it all comedic," the 6-foot-1, 200-pound bachelor says, flashing a perfect toothy grin. "This happening to me, it's completely changed my lifestyle. Things will be back to normal in a month, but for now it's like I have two jobs. Here at the casino, and then everything else that's going on."
That "everything else" are the interview requests coming in from across the country, the attention he's getting around town and the pounds of mail the postman's been dropping in his box since the new issue hit newsstands about a month ago: perfume-scented love notes, letters speckled with hand-drawn smiley faces, photos of females in everything from business suits to next to nothing.
"They're every age, from teenagers to women in their 50s," Snowden said. "Some of them say things like if (they're) ever in Connecticut they'll cook me a big dinner. One girl in Florida promised to take me to a Miami Dolphins game."
The Dolphins reference and the bit about cooking all relate back to the questions asked of him in Cosmo's tell-all article -- things such as his star sign (Aries), his dream woman (educated, loves kids, likes to cook), and what he'd most like to be doing right now (playing for the Dolphins).
"Each letter basically repeats everything I said in the magazine," Snowden said. "Some of them just start pouring their hearts out to me."
Few local admirers have responded -- "I've gotten more from Canada than Vegas," he says -- and he's yet to write any of the women back.
One, however, really caught his eye. He got it Thursday from a girl in Texas, and says he's definitely going to write back to her.
"She opened up to me and said she's an insecure, self-conscious person who's always been teased about her weight," Snowden said. "She sent a picture. Great person. She said in her letter that she just wanted to get to know me, maybe be a pen pal. She said she normally wouldn't do something like this, but really likes kids and saw that I liked kids."
Love connections are possible, Nussbaum says.
"One guy from New Jersey who was in last year's edition is now dating a girl who wrote to him," she said. "It can happen."
Snowden's selection pool is about to get bigger. In addition to various media inquiries and his on-air interview last Thursday with KWNR 95.5-FM, "Extra," the tabloid television show, is expected to air a segment about the Harvard alum this week.
"Extra's" film crew tagged along with Snowden last week, catching him early in the day at Harrah's, pumping iron at the gym after work and rounding out the night at the Orlean's hotel-casino during its weekly "Beach Party" out by the pool.
Superficial stories sell in America today. But who is this guy, really?
A Las Vegas native, Snowden is the middle son of Terry Vanderlip's three boys, whom she raised alone here in town. He grew up disciplined, motivated and a high achiever.
"The weird part is, my mom gave me all the freedom in the world. No curfews. She never told me what kind of grades to get, never made me play sports. I enjoy seeing her happy. That's my motivation for doing what I do."
Snowden was quarterback, punter and kicker for Clark High School, kept his arm in shape during the off-season playing baseball and graduated salutatorian of his class.
Several top Pacific Athletic Conference universities were looking at him, but when he lost his chance to get into Stanford and found out Harvard could offer him a scholarship, he went East.
He played three seasons for Harvard's team, then he injured his shoulder. He spent a summer working for the city of Las Vegas before graduating cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in government.
"I would never trade in my four years at Harvard," Snowden said. "It was the greatest experience I could've ever asked for, between the friends I developed, the tradition and the history. I went to a school that was founded in the 17th century. There's nothing in Las Vegas that was here in the 19th century."
Most of his Harvard buddies, though, grew up around money and went to private or Catholic prep schools -- in stark contrast to Las Vegas, where many children are from poor families, broken homes and do everything they can to avoid college.
The cold, snowy winters brought him back to Las Vegas after graduation.
He typically puts in about a 10-hour day at work where his duties include supervising 23 slot mechanics and performing needed analysis of the machines, such as their positioning and denomination.
But Jay, what about women?
Well, there were no college sweethearts. "I always said it would be great to find someone there, but I never did. There, the focus isn't so much on going out and socializing. Instead, there's a high degree of intellectual study, people are focused. It's a different atmosphere than most college campuses."
His longest relationship was in high school and lasted three and a half years. Interested women best be self-confident: Snowden's got three close female friends -- repeat, friends -- with whom he hangs out.
With college behind him, Snowden's social calendar is picking up. Fridays and Saturdays find him at the Hard Rock, Mandalay Bay's Rum Jungle, Monte Carlo's brew pub and Gordon Biersch.
Ideally, he'd like to find an educated woman who likes sports, can make him laugh and would be into getaways such as a weekend spent skiing and snowboarding in Utah.
"Someone you can have a conversation with," he says, "and not have to wonder what's going on in there."
So far, he's found more materialistic, superficial women in Las Vegas. His biggest turn-off: anyone who asks about how much he makes or the kind of car he drives.
The Cosmo experience, he says, has been fun but a bit "creepy" when he flips through the pages and sees some of the photos of other guys in the edition -- two naked twins in a pool, their unmentionables ever so cleverly hidden below deck; one guy supine, provocatively pulling up his T-shirt. And some of the questions he had to answer, he said, were a bit embarrassing.
"There's no way not to sound cheesy when they ask you questions like that," Snowden said. "Things like, 'What do you like in Las Vegas girls?' I don't know!"
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