What sports fan wouldn't want to be a sportscaster?

You get to be near the biggest sports heroes and watch great games. You get to talk to a camera for a few minutes and then go home. You have professional makeup artists to make you look good and you get to pose in Playboy.

Huh? When has John Madden or Leslie Visser ever posed in a magazine wearing nothing more than a strategically placed towel?

Thankfully, for the sake of our eyesight, neither sportscaster has ever done so.

But CBS' Jill Arrington, Fox's Jillian Barberie and ABC's Melissa Stark each had the chance to take it all off.

The magazine's web site conducted a survey to discover the people's choice for hottest female sportscaster. Arrington, the winner, was offered the chance to pose for Playboy.

Oh no, here we go again. Playboy is doing that darn objectification of women thing again.

But can we expect anything less from the bathrobe-wearing, Viagra-consuming old man who pioneered "classy" porn?

Boys will be boys, period, end of discussion. The day that guys stop looking at attractive women in minimal attire on the pages of a magazine is the day that a cross between Frank Sinatra and U2's Bono appears in State College.

God just doesn't make men as perfect as that.

Playboy makes a living on objectifying women because there's a market for it. As sad and Neanderthal as that seems, no one is going to argue with that.

But this time, Hugh Hefner's latest targets for lust struck a special chord because these women are professional journalists rather than, say, professional strippers in Kid Rock videos.

The funny thing is that the sportscasters, for the most part, have had the best reactions. Some found it humorous, some found it flattering, another was disgusted.

The fact is, the careers these women chose put them in the spotlight. As unfair as it is, they are victims of their own success.

So all they can do is react in the way the see fit. The only real damage they could do is actually take Playboy up on its offer and pose nude. That would truly be damaging to the reputation of women in sports journalism.

Of course, many women don't want to take a laissez faire attitude about this. A female Fox executive was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying, "We're backsliding."

No, we are not. Whether it's as a society or as women, we are not falling into uncharted depths of sexism and sin.

Men who subscribe to Playboy want to see beautiful women, regardless of their profession.

Playboy is always looking for beautiful women to photograph and sell magazines.

And women who work in sports are always subjected to scrutiny and unfair criticism. The Playboy survey is just one more challenge to overcome.

This is a good time for females in the profession and it's getting better.

Hey, at least Stark and Arrington aren't starring in the feel-good, family program Temptation Island or Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? (and then pose nude in Playboy). Which are, by the way, two of Fox's finest shows that join the lofty ranks with When Animals Attack.

And while we're on the subject showing skin for money, it's time to objectify the opposite sex.

The choice for hottest male sportscaster is . . . um, that's a tough one.

George Clooney, feel free to get into sports broadcasting at any time.