The dumbing down of the Olympics.

The domination of sports by the duo of television and Nike achieved their most successful--and most depressing--hours during the recent Olympics. I'm not sure which organization showed more contempt for the viewing audience, but both groups behaved in a shameful manner. CBS executives showed events when they felt like it, pretending that tape was five and scheduling events in a vain effort to draw better audiences. Maybe they thought viewers were so naive as to buy into this pretense, but they didn't fool anyone.

Nike showed how easy it is to buy athletes, Olympic officials and television types. It's as easy as tossing out some Mardi Gras beads and watching children then vibrate with passion. A windbreaker or a cap or maybe even a jockstrap, as long as it had a swoosh, was worn proudly by anyone who could obtain one. And CBS, with the stupid rationale that news and sports are different, allowed its announcers to be walking billboards. It wouldn't surprise me if money went into the corporate coffers every time the logo hit the screen. It does in movies, where the technique is known as "product placement.

I wonder if Nike passed out similar trinkets to writers. The shoe folk might have figured that they weren't visible enough--and then, maybe they decided that in exchange for a handful of beads, the writers would remain docile. Apparently the Nagano Games were well-run and clean, and the Japanese apparently were far more efficient, polite and considerate than the Newt Gingrich constituency that had been in charge of hospitality (yes, hospitality, and try not to laugh) in 1996.

I watched as much of the Olympics as I could stomach, which wasn't very much, but large parts of the Games are not games, and watching nymphets on ice skates is b-o-r-i-n-g. Watching them dance is even more so. Oh, I guess they're cute, and they have ability, but I don't consider it competitive. To me, competition is a struggle, a head-to-head battle. Therefore, I much prefer match play to medal play in golf, and that's something else that television took away from us.

And CBS, in its medal-winning effort to drive viewers away from their sets, didn't show the real competition, though I admit there wasn't very much. But figure skating is ruled by judges and a system no one understands, just like gymnastics in the summer games. And the great ski races are only one person against a clock, not against a real opponent. I'd love to see strategy in skiing and skating, as we do in track and field. I thought some of the speed skating was splendid because we had a chance to watch people race against people. Think how great bobsledding would be it there were a bunch of sleds jockeying for position, drafting, doing all the things auto racers do. Think of the excitement! Merely watching one sled after another go down the course is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Which brings us to hockey ...

I'm not sure why we must have highly paid professionals taking part in a series of games that were designed for amateurs. I don't care what other countries do, but we can retain an amateur spirit. Winning medals is not supposed to be the goal. Merely taking part is being a winner. Be honest. What was exciting in Olympic basketball the last two go-rounds? The games were dull, and there never was a question of winning or losing, only of how many points we would score.

And if we win Olympic basketball championships from now to the year 3000, we will never win one to match the drama of the 1980 triumph by the U.S. hockey team.

The hockey competition was more like a Stanley Cup playoff, and we knew, going in, that we'd be lucky to finish third. But we can watch thousands of games (at least it seems that way) of dump and chase, grab and slash hockey during the regular year. Let the kids play. From all the nations. We are growing a generation of young hockey players, good young hockey players, who never will have the chance to be an Olympian because they're not good enough to play in the National Hockey League. And that's a damn shame.

Being an Olympian should demand some sacrifice from the athletes--by sending the NHL all-stars we take away one more bit of glory from our young people and turn the game over to men who already are making money at it. They don't need medals, too.

That's what made watching the girls an enjoyable experience. They aren't very good hockey players, not even good minor league professionals. But that's not what it's all about. The American girls played hard, and they played tough, physical hockey, and most important, they had fun. That's what it's all about, and the fact that they won gold medals is just icing on the cake.

Of course, the pin-headed simpletons at the NCAA had to once again be the ultimate wet blankets, telling the girls that they could not be in the picture on the Wheaties box if they expected to play college hockey. How stupid!

NCAA executives and Olympic officials probably are the two greediest collections of people in the world. They have traveled the world, sponging off city fathers who are stupid enough to spend the book money and the health money and the civilization money on enticing sports teams and sports games. The non-playing officials, accused of being "quadrennial international freeloaders" by the late Kansas basketball coach, Phog Allen, live off sports and oft cities, enjoying the highest of high lives without answering to anyone.

And then they turn around and puritanically trash some fun for some young women who have worked hard and played hard, in an effort about as close to the Olympic ideal as you can find these days. What would be the terrible crime in letting the kids have their pictures on a cereal box. I'm sure the money could go to charity--or even to provide a meat for the ever-hungry Olympic officials.

Joe Pollack is a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist