Coming Next: John Madden at the Bundys

Call it the NFL meets “Beverly Hills 90210.”

The Fox television network is wasting no time in its attempt to attract young viewers for its broadcasts of NFL games next fall. Starting next week, NFL players will occasionally be guests on Fox shows, play hosts on Fox nights and star in personality-based ads.

“We’ll take off the helmets and put personalities behind them,” Fox’s Tracy Dolgin told Adweek magazine.

The plan, apparently, is to make players such as quarterback Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers as popular as Luke Perry.

“If you saw him,” Dolgin said of Young, “you might be more interested in watching a game to see if he gets his lunch eaten.”

Calling an audible: Quarterback Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys said he would be in Los Angeles this month to make a cameo appearance on the ABC television show, “Coach.”

Aikman said he had not seen a script but was familiar with the story line. The coach, played by Craig T. Nelson, and his wife, played by Shelley Fabares, have been trying to have a baby.

“He tries to talk me into having sex with his wife so he can have an All-American quarterback play for him when he gets older,” Aikman said. “She’s not real thrilled with that.”

Trivia time: Who are the only players to be ranked No. 1 in women’s tennis since 1975?

Failing report card: Sports cards might be big business for manufacturers and collectors, but Scott Ostler wrote in Sport magazine that he is not thrilled with “a hobby that has turned millions of youngsters into junior Donald Trumps.”

Ostler continued: “Young boys should not be reading those card-price catalogues, straining their eyes on the teensy print. They should be reading catalogues from Toys R Us, eventually graduating to Victoria’s Secret. I don’t want my son hanging out with investors, card-forgers, counterfeiters, pirates, dealers and other card-industry types, even if they are his classmates.”

Sand trap: Golfers looking for a new challenge might try entering the Eldo Desert Classic, which is played yearly at the Woomera Club in Australia and is true to its name.

According to Golf Digest, “The only green spots on the Woomera course are the portable patches of artificial turf from which players hit their shots. Players are advised to wear their gloves as they putt so the scorpions don’t sting their hands when they pick the golf ball out of the hole.

“The club motto? ‘Eat my dust.’ ”

Sport with an edge: Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post described the danger faced by skaters in the Winter Games:

“In the pairs skating, the women are so tiny and bird-like, and the men are so strong, it’s like the hammer throw; some beefy John Goodman type of skater could unsuspectingly fling his partner into Lake Mjosa.

“And as we all know here in the post-Tonya Era, figure skating has become dis-figure skating.”

Trivia answer: Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Tracy Austin, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

Quotebook: Chris Chelios of the Chicago Blackhawks, no stranger to disciplinary action by the NHL, after his most recent four-game suspension for gouging the eye of the Vancouver Canucks’ Dana Murzyn: “The suspensions have affected my reputation, and it was bad enough before this.”