In the wake of Labor Day fireworks, it has become something of a Cincinnati tradition for football initiates to guess which of the two local big-time football teams will win the most games. Granted, that "big-time" designation is controversial, for the teams in question are the Bengals and the University of Cincinnati.

In last year's contest, the Bengals held off UC, 3-2, after the Bearcats lost their first nine games. The key to the Bengals' triumph: They had five more games on their schedule. This year's contest also figures to be a low-scoring affair, obviously not because both teams play such great defense.

We'll have to wait until the Bengals win a game this fall before we can even begin to assess the sufficient conditions for such an occurrence. But we already have seen the Bearcats win, hammering Kent, 41-7, on Sept. 4. In the interests of sounding happy, UC now has won three consecutive games.

In this space, there has never been a tincture of shame in expressing high hopes and best wishes for UC's football program. Rick Minter will become the Bearcats' longest-running coach this season, and, last year's results aside, he's done a commendable job.

Whether the people of Cincinnati care or not, it's nice when the city has a halfway decent college football team. What harm could it possibly do? Like the rest of us, Minter has made mistakes, but he's working hard to make it happen and you have to tip your hat to him.

His job has never been easy. Just as UC's 8-4 finish with a Humanitarian Bowl victory in 1997 appeared to signal that the corner had been turned, last year's 2-9 finish reinforced the program's mythic futility.

Last season's culprits were an offense that committed 37 turnovers and a smallish defense that allowed 484 yards per game. Both characteristics went against form for Minter, who had won the turnover column for three years running with thrilling defenses.

In another unfortunate departure from form, top running back DeMarco McCleskey has fallen by the wayside via criminal charges. This episode put an even worse face on UC's football program, which is a shame for such a constructive operation.

But yet another departure from form for Minter bodes well for this season. Last season, the Bearcats balanced out their offense with a passing attack and averaged 418 yards per game. If they could have hung onto the ball, the Bearcats would have been in more games.

Minter returned the defense this year to a four-man front, recruiting heavily in junior college defensive players with hopes of fixing the leaks. It looks good so far, but Kent isn't much of a test.

It will be progressively tougher in the next three weeks. Saturday, the Bearcats will take a crack at Troy State, a decent 1-AA program. A week later, Wisconsin comes to Nippert Stadium with running back Ron Dayne approaching the NCAA's career rushing yardage record.

Then, on Sept. 25, comes a milestone for this program -- an appearance in Columbus against the Ohio State Buckeyes. A little less than two years ago, the prospect of UC playing Ohio State raised the possibility of an exciting program on the rise taking reasonable aim on the traditional power in its back yard. Now, it looks like one of those Ohio Stadium blowouts in which the fans cheer the Buckeyes' 10th touchdown louder than the first.

But there's no reason now to abandon hope. The Bearcats are going to line up against Ohio State, so it will be their best chance yet. It should be a big event in town. More likely, though, local fans will spend the week in advance expressing their usual disregard for UC football.

It's too bad, because the program really does deserve at least well wishes, if not confidence.

* * *

Much recent commentary has been spent on the cultural importance of ESPN, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week. The sheer volume of such commentary, in itself, tells us something about the all-sports cable operation. Nothing speaks to ESPN's overblown importance like the notion that it has made an impact on culture, which is the sort of observation that passes inevitably through the incestuous maneuvers of sports journalists.

Not to hammer on the point, but this is a peeve. Culture is the sum of customs, practices, arts and beliefs by which a people tries to account for its origins and its place in the world. Culture is not the sum of diversionary activity by which folks kill time between trips to the porcelain throne.

Culture is really big. ESPN is not a factor.

That said, it was on ESPN that Hakeem Olajuwon was spotted saying he couldn't understand why people don't want to talk about politics and religion, considering those are the two most important things for people to discuss.

Anti-intellectualism in America certainly didn't begin with ESPN, but, given the choice between reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and watching the basketball game between Idaho and Weber State, it's too easy too often to put down the book. ESPN gave us that choice. Gee, thanks.

The milieu in which ESPN has been influential is commonly called "popular culture," born of electronic mass media, a manipulative entertainment industry and the mechanisms of 20th-Century fame. All of these factors have taken their toll on sports, particularly under the banner of ESPN.

In days past and, still, on its best days, sports is edifying, much more satisfying than entertainment. It offers true-life examples of people defeating obstacles implanted by rules and opposition through skill and ingenuity to complete a task.

The means to such achievement aren't always awe-inspiring or glamorous. It's batters hitting the other way, basketball players setting screens and wide receivers throwing blocks downfield. Plenty of times, the commentators on ESPN recognize and applaud these tasks. Indeed, they appreciate these tasks more than most of the audience.

The athletes are said to be playing to the SportsCenter highlights. If this is true, the joke is on the athletes, because SportsCenter is more about the cute witticisms of its anchors and the promotion of ESPN properties than about the games and athletes.

By inviting the athletes to play along in its advertising campaigns, showing the athletes and anchors in fraternal bonding, ESPN bludgeons the lines between sports and journalism, between sports and entertainment and between journalism and entertainment such as to blowtorch everyone's credibility.

And ESPN's noxious cross-promotion between its television networks, its magazine, its Web site, its sports cafes and Monday Night Football on ABC, which is owned by the same parent company, is one of the most cynical developments to ever hit the mass media.

But if you can filter through the nonsense and see it for what it is, ESPN gives sports fans what they want -- the games. ESPN didn't create a demand for the games, which have been around for a long time. The most remarkable component of ESPN's growth goes back to the beginning, when some commentators were so out of touch they thought an all-sports cable channel wouldn't make it.