IT'S THE PATS VS. THE PANTIES IN L.A.

Byline: MARIEL GARZA

YOU probably don't know that even while the Super Bowl XXXVIII is being played in Houston this afternoon by the New England Patriots and that other team whose name I forget, another actual football game will be going on right here in Los Angeles, at the Coliseum.

And by actual, I mean it will take place on a football field. Otherwise, the very first Lingerie Bowl will look very different from the violent competition in Houston. Two teams of scantily clad models and actresses will toss the pigskin for about 20 minutes, as coached by former NFL stars Eric Dickerson and Lawrence Taylor.

I'm not kidding.

The game will be beamed to anyone willing to shell out $19.95 to see the PartyPoker.com-sponsored alternative to the official halftime show. More than likely, as the racy ads for the broadcast strongly suggest, it will be a real game only until the first ``tackle.''

You'd think that the return of nationally televised, professional football - of a sort - to Los Angeles on Super Bowl Sunday would be good news to Councilman Bernard Parks and Supervisor Don Knabe, our good representatives on the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission.

Apparently not, because they and other city representatives such as City Council President Alex Padilla, Councilman Tony Cardenas, Deputy Mayor Eric Brown and Pat Lynch, the L.A. Coliseum's general manager, made their way to Houston for the NFL festivities that began Friday with a big meeting. Their goal: To keep the NFL bigwigs thinking about the venerable Coliseum, home of the very first Super Bowl, not to mention a couple of Olympic games and USC football.

Los Angeles hasn't had an NFL franchise since the Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995. And many people think it's a downright travesty that the second-biggest market in the country lacks a team in the great American tradition.

As I called around the City Hall and county offices in the days before, everyone was talking about how the ``NFL needs Los Angeles,'' and that the Coliseum could be ready for a team by 2006. No one even really wanted to talk about the Lingerie Bowl.

Not surprising. No self-respecting politician would want to be caught having a position on what's clearly an event not far removed from mud- wrestling and wet T-shirt contests. (For the record, the ``lingerie'' in question is short shorts and sports bras adorned with lace. On the whole, not unlike what's worn by any number of female athletes, from long-distance runners to soccer players.)

``Please don't write about the Lingerie Bowl, you're just giving free advertising to it,'' one City Hall staffer asked. Maybe, but how's that different from writing about any sporting event from the Super Bowl to NASCAR?

In fact, if I had a choice, I'd vote for the Lingerie Bowl over any so-called real football because at least it's over in 20 minutes and everyone can go back to their lives. In regular football, it takes hours to move a ball 15 feet, in between color commentary assaults informing us of important facts such as ``these teams are here to play.''

I can imagine the color commentary at the Lingerie Bowl would be somewhat more unique: ``And Quarterback Angie Everhart gets the ball and - oh no, she's sacked by a lanky brunette in pink. Whoops, were those her panties?''

Now, I'm as opposed as any woman to the crass exploitation of my gender for profit, which this clearly is. But professional football really isn't far removed. C'mon, how is a round of sweaty, fat men pummeling each other silly on a cow pasture, between beer ads that objectify women and glorify drinking alcohol, somehow more virtuous than a dozen or so beautiful and fit women traipsing around in the grass and having some fun?

And maybe this could bloom into an actual real women's sports league. Remember the movie ``A League of Their Own''? It was based on a short-lived women's American baseball league created during World War II, when all the young guys were fighting in Europe and in the Pacific and didn't have time to play sports. These were serious players, yet they had to wear cute dresses and makeup. Guys came to hoot and holler and hope for something to shake loose.

Don't tell me those girls weren't ogled more for their shape than their pitching style. But, hey, they got to play some ball for money.

Now, if the NFL suddenly gets the urge to up and drop some cash on the old Coliseum and bring in a team like the Dolphins or Rams or Emus or whatever, that's fabulous. No opposition from me. I'm all for giving men another cap-fashion choice.

But frankly, I can find few people other than die-hard Raider fans who care very much if football comes back to Los Angeles, and then only if it's the Raiders themselves. And I know more than a few people who wish the effort and money behind wooing an NFL team were put to other uses, such as wooing great cops to the police force, crack traffic engineers to save our butts from the Evil 101 or amazing teachers for our schools.

Los Angeles doesn't suffer from not having a professional football team. We've got college football. We've got the world-famous Lakers and Dodgers, as well as the less-world famous but hard-working Sparks, Kings, Clippers and Galaxy.

And now, we've got the Lingerie Bowl.