DON'T BET ON ROLE MODELS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

For gambling flings that didn't break the law but did violate college athletics' ever-loftier standard of propriety, Rick Neuheisel is about to be fired as the University of Washington's head football coach.

The good news for Neuheisel is that he's still eligible for the American presidency, the Supreme Court and the leaderships of most major religions.

Time was when the civic-minded worried that otherwise capable leaders would shy away from running for public office because they dread the intense scrutiny of their private lives by political opponents, ethical watchdogs and reporters.

Now, maybe the same sympathy should be extended to would-be college coaches.

Larry Eustachy, the Iowa State basketball coach, was fired after being photographed partying with students in the midst of his underdog battle with alcoholism. Mike Price, the new Alabama football coach, was fired after stepping out with a stripper during an offseason golfing trip. And this morning, Neuheisel seems to be on his way out at Washington, after the university's nearly weeklong investigation of his participation in friendly though high-stakes gambling pools on the past two NCAA men's basketball tournaments.

College sports' morality squads are having an even better year than the Syracuse basketball team.

``Boys will be boys,'' the Orange County Register's Todd Harmonson wrote in an analysis of the new standards of conduct, ``but coaches who are paid six or seven figures a year to represent their school are expected to act like adults.''

Harmonson wrote: ``The educators (coaches) need to be educated that despite their inflated salaries and egos, they actually have to play by the same rules as everyone else, whether they are established by society or the NCAA.''

Which would be fine if coaches were being judged by the same rules as everyone else, reasonable rules enforced with a touch of common sense, enforced with a far-sighted understanding of the message they send to kids.

What I'd like to know is when, exactly, we stopped looking at guys like Eustachy, Price and Neuheisel as X's-and-O's experts and started holding them up as priests.

Once upon a time, a coach was expected to know how to draw neat squiggles on chalkboards, know when to call a water break and know the right moment to pull out his version of the Gipper speech.

These days, a coach is expected to do all that and maintain the sort of cleaned-and-pressed public image that would put Billy Graham to shame.

Maybe it's because coaches have traded in the sweatshirt, whistle and monosyllabic image for alpaca sweaters, granny glasses and literate sound bites.

Maybe it's because we've all watched too many ESPN Classic biographies of John Wooden and Vince Lombardi and bought the notion that the principal duty of the head coach is to be a role model for young men and women.

More than anything else, maybe it's because university presidents believe they can justify their football and basketball coaches' $10 million contracts only by demanding something more than winning records.

But is this the best thing for college sports and the kids who play them?

If you're a parent, you're a bozo if you send your children off to campus expecting to receive their moral guidance from men whose expertise lies in the proper application of the nickel defense.

Repeat after me: They're coaches.

It would be healthier for everybody if we stopped putting them on pedestals.

Eustachy got drunk and kissed a girl in front of a camera. Price cheated on his wife with somebody named Destiny. Neuheisel wagered $5,000 with friends in a 2002 NCAA basketball pool and claims to have won $20,000 on Maryland's championship.

Neuheisel, the one-time UCLA quarterback and assistant coach, appears to have run afoul of NCAA rules barring players and athletic-department employees from doing any kind of sports gambling. This could be the excuse Washington needs to fire Neuheisel after he has skated through a series of controversies and fibs.

The question is whether the NCAA's crusade against gambling has gone so far that it has lost its credibility.

It's one thing to prohibit coaches and athletes from gambling on their own sports, because they could be tempted to throw games for financial gain. It's one thing to try to prevent coaches and athletes from dropping thousands of dollars to bookies, because they might find themselves in hock to a guy named Cheech who advises, ``If you like your kneecaps you'll let the Irish cover on Saturday.''

It's something else to get worked up over a bet among buddies, a bet that might look exorbitant to you and me but rates as a cheap thrill to someone with Neuheisel's $1.2 million salary.

Does anybody really think Neuheisel is a step closer to fixing a football game because he took a dip in a basketball pool?

If vice should be practiced only in moderation, then so should purity.

But try telling that to a sports establishment which, in trying to give its games a significance they shouldn't have, are trying to turn coaches into paragons of virtue that few can be.