Behind the Scenes of College Scandals: Take It Away, Wink

These are dark times for college athletics.

Greed, corruption, scandals, cheating.

And that’s just in intramurals.

As one major athletic program after another goes down in flaming disgrace, fans and the concerned public cry out for reform.

Save your breath, folks. You might as well put your shoulder to a glacier and try to push it back up the mountain.

What college athletics need is not sweeping reform but a new marketing strategy.

There is way too much emphasis on the selling of the actual sports events, which tend to be boring. What the public wants to see is the fun that goes on behind the scenes.

What I propose is a weekly TV show, “College Sports Bleeps, Bloopers, Blunders and Disgusting Dirty Laundry.”

The show would have Wink Martindale and Christie Brinkley as co-hosts, with Howard Cosell the wisecracking reporter in the field.

This show wouldn’t wipe out the immorality in college sports, but it would provide chuckles and guffaws to help us all forget what a sleaze pit we’re dealing with here.

The show would be filmed by the same sneaky camera crew that brought us the DeLorean tapes. They would afford us a behind-the-scenes, Candid Camera-type look at the real college sports, such as:

--Alumni high jinks.

One of the truly fascinating aspects of college sports is the involvement of school alumni in athletics.

Just what is it that causes these titans of industry, pillars of society, movers and shakers, to tremble with excitement at the prospect of being allowed to buy a Trans-Am for an 18-year-old recruit with a 19-inch neck?

On our show, we’ll find out. Imagine the blushing and forehead slapping when a wealthy alum, presenting a handful of precious gems to a star linebacker who has turned in five quarterback sacks, is told to look up at the hidden camera.

--Fun with drugs.

See the team doctor, who thinks the Hippocratic oath is a heavy-metal rock group, handing out pills and packets to the players.

See the campus student dealer throwing drugs around like Rip Taylor tossing confetti in his comedy act.

See the coach and trainer look the other way, pretending not to notice when the star power forward adds 15 inches to his vertical leap in one day.

We’ll see muscle-building drugs, pain-killing drugs, mood-altering drugs and plain old good-time drugs to help you make it through another boring lecture in history of bumper pool.

We’ll see teen-age athletes puffing, popping, shooting and snorting--in short, building character through chemistry.

--High rolling.

What would college sports be without good old all-American wagering?

Just to make the game interesting, y’understand.

We’ll see bookies, touts, point shavers and game fixers in a symphony of teamwork that is the essence of college sport.

This segment is subject to cancellation if the NCAA people manage to wipe out gambling. They plan to tackle this vice just as soon as they stamp out sex and Italian food.

--Kids in power.

We’ll see star athletes calling their college presidents by their first names, laying down ground rules for the coaches, parking their cars on the lawn of the administration building, sending student assistants to class to take their midterm exams and flying home at school expense for a relative’s funeral, on a commuter flight to Toledo that has a three-day layover for change of planes in Maui.

--The recruiting roundup.

Why can’t a blue-chip high school athlete choose his or her college by sending away for brochures, as the other kids do?

Because that would deprive the coaches of the fun and excitement of recruiting. We’ll see dignified coaches, known by such reverent nicknames as The Baron and The Legend, yapping, panting and drooling like starving hounds at the feet of hot prep prospects.

We’ll see the blue-chip recruit on a campus visit, greeted at the airport by his official campus tour guides--three basketball cheerleaders dressed like Madonna.

We’ll see the coaches in action. Slick? These coaches could sell used cars to used-car salesmen.

We’ll watch as famous coaches bribe, lie, wheedle, sweet-talk and promise med-school degrees to moms of kids who have never worn shoes.

We’ll see a famous coach telling a recruit, “Of course you can major in surfing, son, but you’re coming to our school for an education, so don’t think you can skip class every day.”

Along with the fun footage, this bleeps and blunders TV show will also devote a little time each week to candid scenes showing ethical and rational recruiting, concerned medical care, dignified alumni activities and honest athletes.

Otherwise, the show might create the false impression that college sports are in big trouble.