ESPN wanted to buy a football team. The Montour school board to its everlasting discredit was only too glad to sell it one.

The educational process took a giant step backward at Montour, a suburban Pittsburgh school district with a recent history of unsuccessful football and a longer history of politically motivated school boards.

	Mark J. Terrill, Associated Press Dick Butkus will move from his Malibu, Calif., home to live in Western Pennsylvania during the high school football season. Click photo for larger image. Previous Story: A reality check: Who is coach?

The Montour board sold out its players, its coach and the community it represents by agreeing to allow its football program to be part of an ESPN reality show that will feature NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkus.

In agreeing to such an idea, the board badly undercut first-year coach Lou Cerro, who was fresh from an outstanding and exciting run of championship football at Seton-LaSalle, for 15 minutes of fame and a hefty chunk of ESPN largesse.

It won't be just a case of cameras rolling while the team is practicing. By itself, that would be educationally sloppy and a monumental distraction. But it's much more.

After attempting to put out the word that Butkus would be part of Cerro's staff, Montour came out with the truth. Butkus will be head coach; Cerro his assistant.

The show will be called, "Bound for Glory -- The Montour Spartans." It will air for eight weeks for an hour on Tuesday at 10 p.m. beginning Sept. 20.

Of course, Butkus, who has never coached, will be the star. What kind of TV show would it be if some Pittsburgh guy named Lou Cerro was the star?

Montour made this decision for the oldest reason known to man: Money.

All kinds of goodies await Montour. ESPN will be providing a new scoreboard, new uniforms for the football team and the cheerleaders and state-of-the-art field maintenance equipment. And that's just what has been revealed so far.

Too bad there's not an educational Hall of Shame. The Montour school board, which just might be dressing in ESPN gear these days, and its complying high school principal and athletic director would be first-ballot inductees.

The beauty of all this is that ESPN didn't get what it was looking for.

In describing the show, R.J. Cutler, the executive producer, said, "It's a very simple idea about a school and town where football is in many ways the lifeblood of the community."

Someone gave Cutler some bad information. If he wanted a community where football was the lifeblood, he should have looked at Aliquippa. If he wanted one where football was vital and there were a recent losing tradition, he should have looked at Butler.

To suggest football is the lifeblood of Robinson and Kennedy townships, well, that's pretty funny.

The man in the middle of all this is Cerro, a good guy who was 33-5 with two WPIAL titles the past three seasons at Seton-LaSalle. To lure Cerro from Seton-LaSalle, the school board created an administrative job to supplement his coaching salary. While coaching at Seton-LaSalle, his main source of income was as a truck driver for Breadworks.

The board hired him by the narrowest of margins, 5-4, so Cerro understands he's in no position to make critical statements. Still, he's an honest guy.

Contacted on vacation in South Carolina, Cerro acknowledged this was not the best possible situation.

"I don't think it will be a distraction for me but definitely for the kids. Hopefully, after the novelty wears off we can get the work done that needs to be done."

He described the situation as "a work in progress."

In other words, the rebuilding of the Montour Spartans will be secondary to the filming of a television show.

It's no secret that despite the lack of a title, Cerro will make most important decisions. Not only has Butkus never coached, but he also doesn't have an inkling of the talent of the Montour personnel, and he's nowhere near up to speed on the offensive and defensive schemes Cerro wants to run.

But for the sake of the cameras, which will be at practice almost every day, Butkus will be making most of the major announcements, which will be confusing, to say the least, for the high school kids.

Here's the worst part. A reality show can't be successful if everything runs smoothly. Football practice is exceedingly boring. Viewers will be changing channels in a hurry if the show offers the normal hum-drum routine of a practice day.

There has to be conflict. There has to be tension. There has to be trouble.

Here are just a few ideas the producers might be considering:

Conflict between Butkus and the man -- it now can be revealed -- who lost his job to Butkus.

Butkus, a legendary tough guy, deals in his own special way with meddling parents.

Butkus deals in his own special way with meddling administrators.

Butkus deals in his own special way with snotty senior quarterback.

Oh, it should be a blast for Montour, where they think the rest of the world is envying them but which is actually laughing at them.

Hang tough, Lou Cerro and good luck with the rebuilding process -- in 2006.