UO's `Animal House II,' the sports $equel.

Byline: Bob Welch The Register-Guard

EDITOR'S NOTE: The year is 1980 and, after the box-office success of "Animal House," three Hollywood screenwriters meet to brainstorm a sequel to be set far in the future.

Screenwriter 1: `I love it: `Animal House II.' We film it on that University of Oregon campus again but set it in the early 2000s.'

Screenwriter 2: `Yeah, only something with more of a `jock twist.' '

Screenwriter 3: "Are you forgetting about the golf scene?"

S-2: "No, no, I mean let sports be the central theme. The Animal House gang grows up - Bluto, Flounder, the whole bunch and - '

S-1: "And so what's the plot, the conflict?"

S-3: `I got it: Let's say Faber College has a mediocre sports program - its motto is `Winning is good' - and so the old Delta Tau boys return, as a sort of an alumni posse, to do the only thing they can do.'

S-2: "Toga?"

S-3: "No, stupid, make the program Big League. So to attract recruits, they unfurl a five-story banner of their quarterback from the university's tallest building."

S-1: "Oh, come on. The Deltas couldn't pull that off."

S-3: "You're forgetting, man. These frat guys aren't 20 anymore, they're in their 50s. Some, like Otter, have deep pockets. They have connections."

S-2: "Well, then, why not make it a 10-story banner in Times Square?"

S-1: "Come on. Get real, you guys."

S-3: "No, he's right. Times Square! And the Deltas take over the athletic department. And decide that to get more attention, they'll outfit the teams in uniforms the color of those long-nose butterfly fish."

S-2: `Sure, the `Fighting Highlighters!' And then they come out with four different sets of uniforms. Dozens of funky combinations. Faber football suddenly becomes the talk of New York fashion shows!'

S-3: "Right, and then the Deltas drop whole truckloads of Fizzies into the swim meet and deliver medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner and - '

S-1: "Whoa, hold on. That'll never work. Faber has no swim team or medical school."

S-3: "But it could by the early 2000s, which, remember, is the setting for this thing."

S-1: "No, that's too outlandish. Think guys, think."

S-2: "OK, the Faber football team gets really good. They add on to the stadium. But instead of putting a horse in Dean Wormer's office, the Deltas put up really weird art outside the stadium - giant X's and O's that people keep thinking is some sort of lineal tick-tack-toe board and - '

S-3: "And they hire a former athletic director from a school in the same conference - pay him, say, $2,300 a day! - to evaluate the program but - '

S-2: "But the current athletic director decides he wants to shuffle off and be a gentleman rancher - '

S-1: "Right, but to make sure he keeps shuffling, some rich alum - it could be Boon! - gives him a $2 million golden parachute."

S-3: "Hold on. This is brilliant! And who do they hire as the new athletic director?"

S-2: "The guy who put up the 2 million bucks! Of course! And the professors on campus, particularly Dean Neidermeyer, are livid. How dare they besmirch the honor of Faber by allowing such - '

S-1: `Oh, but these are the Delts, the guys whose motto is `We don't get mad, we get even,' and they've been wanting to rub the Neidermeyer noses in it since they didn't graduate nearly 40 years ago so - '

S-3: "So they hire a millionaire who went to Faber but never graduated! Never even worked as a volunteer stat kid for an athletic program. Some insurance guy."

S-1: "To run the whole blasted program! But - get this - he refuses to take any pay!"

S-2: "This is just too weird."

S-1: "But don't you get it? It's a farce!"

S-3: "Which means there's only one way to end it: The Delts and Neidermeyers get together for a luncheon at the student union but, alas, it turns into a -

S-1, S-2 and S-3: "Food fight!"