O.K. lemme get this out of the way. 25-6. Great season. Larry and the lads win the regular season conference title for the second year in a row, and Eustachy takes home the Big 12 Coach of the Year, again. I mean, GREAT SEASON.

Problem is, you say “how about that men’s team,” to a die-hard on campus, and you’re gonna hear a jeer rather than a cheer.

Baylor and Hampton will do that to you.

What’s more, days before the Baylor game, Eustachy agreed in principle to a $1.1 million a year deal.

Programs that pay their coaches $1 million a year are the programs that are the Founding Fathers of college basketball. Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky, just to name a few.

I mean, these programs used to chill with James Naismith back in the day.

So $1 million a year is big-time. Coach Krzyzewski makes $1.4 mil a year at Duke, and the home floor he walks across is named in his honor.

So when you sign a million-dollar contract, you better become a Founding Father. Quick.

I know what you’re thinkin’. If we didn’t sign Eustachy, he’d bolt.

Well, maybe.

According to The Des Moines Register, Eustachy made $900,000 last year. Was he hurting at $900,000? I don’t know.

But when you agree to a $200,00 a year raise, and then lose the next two games you play, die-hards shift in their seats and mumble four letter words.

And when the losses are to Baylor (a team the rest of the Big 12 sometimes uses in place of toilet paper) and Hampton (which seven winters ago wasn’t even Division I), you’re not worth that extra $200 G a year.

And if those losses are any indication of things to come next year, there are much better ways to spend $200,000.

For $200,000, you could drive my ’84 silver Camaro, which gets 17 miles to the gallon, to Boise and back 945 times ($1.29 per gallon gas).

You could wear 22 black mock Adidas turtlenecks every day for eight months ($19.99 each), then pile them in a huge heap, pour a gallon of gas over them ($1.29) and burn them with 101,008 Bic lighters (.99 each).

For $200,000, you could drink 66,666 Strawberry Smoothies ($3.00 each) or eat 80,000 ‘Clone Cones ($2.50 each).

Eustachy said it’s unfortunate this year’s team will be remembered for their post-season play. It is unfortunate.

So is world hunger.

For $200,000, you could sponsor a child through Save the Children for 693 years ($.79 a day).

Or, if you wanted to help in a more literary way, you could drop funding for the 693-year-old and ship his or her country 23,529 copies of Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full, ($8.50 paperback) the greatest novel of all time.

Or, you could drop literature and read opposing views of philosophy, like 11,123 copies of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead ($8.99 paperback) and 7,147 New American Standard Holy Bible’s ($13.99 paperback).

Eustachy has agreed to $1.1 million, ISU football coach Dan McCarney will make $2.4 million over the next four years, and Iowa State will cut $18 million from its budget next year.

The term “big-time college athletics” is quickly becoming an oxymoron. Or more aptly put by National Public Radio commentator Frank Deford, a “pious hypocrisy.”

But Eustachy can help.

For $200,000 he could skim 15,396 Webster’s Universal College Dictionaries ($12.99 hard cover).

Just imagine it.

After a couple of weeks of pouring over those babies, Eustachy’s trite ref tirades could be replaced by “Hey, arbitrator. Your oculus is erroneous. That contemptuous malcontent disporting for the adversary has a soul filled with vice.”

Refs won’t know whether to give him the boot or recommend him for grad school.

One point one million dollars. It would take my teaching mother and farming father 22 years to collectively earn what Eustachy does in one.

Two-hundred thousand dollars is a lot too. You could buy 6,666 seats at the Pepsi Center in Denver, watching the ISU women’s basketball team play Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16 this weekend ($30 per ticket. Women’s coach Bill Fennelly base salary was $240,000 this year, with $187,000 possible incentive pay).

If you don’t care about ISU women’s basketball, you must be lonely right now. For $200,000, you can cure it with 4,765 inflatable women from Pleasure Palace ($41.97, duplex model.)

If you don’t like this column you could read 8,714 copies of The Life of Reilly, by a real columnist, Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly ($22.95 hard back).

For $200,000, you can take a first-aid course from the American Red Cross 8,000 times ($25 per session).

After done with your extensive training, you could even administer to the men’s basketball team.

The Heimlich maneuver’s taught.

Paul Kix is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard. His column is funded by GSB