Pretty cool, huh? — all these athletic directors, coaches and presidents taking time to do the right thing, even though it wouldn't help them win more games or collect more money. Among those who made the appeal were the presidents and athletic directors at BYU, Utah, Utah State and Southern Utah, along with Utah president Michael Young and Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham.

It seemed like a reasonable and noble request. What idiot decided beer and college athletics were a good mix?

But somehow the NCAA rejected the ban on beer ads. They wimped out. They voted last week to continue to allow beer advertising on college sports telecasts — further proof that networks and money are running college athletics.

Their hypocrisy knows no limits. On one hand, they're telling kids not to binge drink and not to drink if they're underage, and with the other hand they're taking money from beer companies. Meanwhile, they won't let kids accept a few dollars from a coach for transportation or breakfast.

In their letter to the NCAA, the aforementioned college officials wrote, "Alcohol and college sports are a bad mix. Beer promotion during college sports telecasts undermines the best interests of higher education and compromises the efforts of colleges and others to combat sometimes epidemic levels of alcohol problems on many campuses today."

According to a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, more than 40 percent of college students binge drink — consuming five or more drinks on at least one occasion in the past 30 days. Among college students between the ages of 18 and 24, alcohol is involved in approximately 599,000 injuries, 696,000 assaults, 97,000 sexual assaults and 1,700 deaths from unintentional injuries, including from car crashes, each year.

Somehow, NCAA types sleep better at night because they demand that their advertisers put "drink responsibly" in the beer commercials. How much more difficult would it be for the NCAA to ban beer ads? TV already bans ads for liquor, cigarettes, and guns, among other things; the NCAA forces arenas to cover beer ads in stadiums and arenas during championship events, and does not allow the sale of alcohol during games. It prohibits liquor ads during TV broadcasts of college games, but makes an exception for beer — the alcohol of choice for college kids — albeit limiting ads for beer to 60 seconds per hour of television coverage.

Young, the University of Utah president, believes the NCAA wouldn't miss the lost revenues from beer ads, which account for about five percent of total broadcast revenues for the NCAA. They would be quickly replaced.

But the NCAA — surprise! — sees no need for change.

"I think we've taken a very sensible, very rationale, very conservative approach, and we've asked that any company that advertises (alcohol) during our games continue to include the message 'drink responsibly' on its ads," Adams said.

Right, that will be a big help in the student drinking problem — two words.

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E-mail: drob@desnews.com