By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Dec. 15, 1998

Just when fans started thumb their noses at pro sports because the money is so outlandish and amateur sports were more attractive, similar insidious problems have infested college sports and the Olympics.

If a

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university the caliber of Northwestern can fill up the blotter from gambling then any school is vulnerable.

AS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC Committee and the United States Olympic Committee, take your pick when you consider whose members are more vulnerable to the bribe. That the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee is accused of bribing committee members is not a stunner. Perhaps it's only surprising that it took so long to be revealed. Why else would Sydney's name keep popping up until it finally got Summer Games?

Now, we've got the chairman of the IOC's medical commission saying creatine does not qualify as a performance-enhancing drug ... it's a food!

Sorry, few people know more about food than yours truly (just look at me), and creatine just isn't food. Take my word for it, if it's food, I'll eat it. I have no desire for creatine. It's better known as an amino acid protein.

Not that amino acid proteins will show up on any appetizer lists at your local diner.

The point of all this is there continues to be more politicking and back-stabbing going on than at a George Steinbrenner dinner party.

There continued to be two factions in Seattle, battling for future Olympics, and finally it was ousted once and for all. The politically correct version was to utilize the already huge traffic problem as a major means of booting the project. It wasn't worth the additional income to trash the city.

The real reason, was what we may have suspected all along.

"It would be exaggerating to say people on the committees (USOC and IOC) are walking around with their hands out," said one member of the local search committee. "But the expectations are there. It's been going on forever, these lavish gifts. It's understood, the people on those committees are taken care of, if you know what I mean."

NO WINKING WAS NECESSARY. EITHER THE IOC and USOC committees have to be honest beyond reproach about this, or it's never going to be rectified. The revelation that $400,000 worth of scholarships were paid by the Salt Lake City committee to 13 people -- six of whom were relatives of the IOC officials -- tells us everything we need to know.

It's been referred to as unequivocal "bribery" by Marc Hodler, an IOC executive board member from Switzerland. IOC president Juan Samaranch has started an investigation.

And those guys had no idea these kind of shenanigans have been going on? C'mon guys, we don't buy it..

Furthermore, the IOC is working real hard to get Major League Baseball to ban andro, the testosterone-producing drug Mark McGwire and many other home-run hitters use. But the IOC continues to allow creatine, which McGwire's partner in home run fame Sammy Sosa uses.

They both yield more testosterone in the system. However, Prince Alexandre de Merode, the IOC medical commission chairman, continues to claim creatine is food.

UH-HUH.

Dennis Lundy (left) was accused of lying when he said he did not fumble on purpose on a goal-line rush during this 1994 game against Iowa. (AP)

NOW THAT'S NOT TO SAY that de Merode is being encouraged by the company that produces creatine by any stretch of the imagination. We would never insinuate that.

Nonetheless, this is pretty fishy. All of it.

And as for the Northwestern football and basketball teams, football coach Gary Barnett and athletic director Rick Taylor can throw up their hands all they want, but the conviction of perjury of some Wildcat football players locks in exactly what all the athletes on campus knew. There was point shaving going on. Dennis Lundy fumbled on purpose to throw a football game. He was even suspended after the game, but neither Barnett nor Taylor chose to take it to another level until the feds came in.

So while we may be (OK, we are) overwhelmed by the ludicrous amount of money that is cutting out the hearts and souls of pro basketball and baseball, let's not forget that it goes way beyond just those two sports.

In fact, you might say at least they're up front about what they want. In the high brow world of Northwestern University, the IOC and USOC, what we see isn't necessarily what we get. It's a societal thing, you know.

But even a cretin could know creatine may cause peripheral damage that nobody knows about quite yet.

Then again, that burger, fries and a shake won't do my heart any good either. I just never pretended that it would.

Mike Kahn is CBS SportsLine's executive editor.