If the advertisers during this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament were honest, this is what their ads might look like:

CHEVY OBLIVIATOR

FADE IN:

EXTERIOR: Beautiful, grassy meadow–Day

Birds chirp as a rabbit munches grass and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains loom in the background. Another rabbit hops by. Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” plays.

Singer: “This land is your land; this land is my land

from California to the New York island

from the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters…”

The heavy guitar of Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam” replaces “This Land Is Your Land”

An enormous truck tire rolls over the rabbit and stops before the camera.

Announcer (Voice over): “This land . . . is MY land!”

The tire spins out, spraying dirt and rocks onto the camera.

Cut to:

EXTERIOR: Open field–Day

A black, one-story-tall pickup truck crushes through the field, sending squirrels, birds, mountain lions, antelope, grizzly bear, wildebeest, and wild horses thundering away as Metallica plays.

Singer: “Off the beaten path I reign

Rover wanderer

Nomad vagabond

Call me what you will”

Cut to:

EXTERIOR: Wooded foothills–Day

The Obliviator rams huge boulders, exploding them into clouds of dust and pebble. It knocks down and rides over tall pine trees, and leaps over small streams, leaving a path of destruction behind it.

Singer: “But I’ll take my time anywhere

I’m free to speak my mind anywhere

And I’ll never mind anywhere

Anywhere I may roam!”

Announcer: “Chevy Obliterator. Mark your territory.”

FADE OUT.

PARTY DUDE BEER

FADE IN:

INTERIOR: College party–Night

There is no sound from the party. All that is heard is “Loser” by Beck.

Gorgeous, fashionable college students dance and mingle. An unattractive nerd stands nervously against the wall. Several beautiful women walk up to good-looking guys who are drinking Party Dude Beer, grab them by the arm, and lead them away. The nerd looks down at his empty hands, dejected.

Cut to:

INTERIOR: Different college party–Night

The nerd is drinking Party Dude Beer, as are several good-looking guys around him. He smiles. Beautiful women approach the other men and whisk them away. The nerd excitedly guzzles his beer and opens a fresh one.

Cut to:

INTERIOR: College party–Later

The nerd sits on a couch with several empty Party Dude Beer bottles around him. He is drunk; his eyes are drooping. Good-looking couples walk past. He looks across the couch. On the other end is a tremendous fat guy, who gives him the “thumbs up”.

Cut to:

INTERIOR: College party–Later

The nerd is passed out on the floor among scattered Party Dude Beer bottles. The fat guy is sprawled on the couch in the background. The camera closes in on the nerd’s forehead.

Cut to:

EXTERIOR: Beach–Day

The nerd lays on a beach, fanned and oiled up by gorgeous women he saw at the party that night.

Cut to:

INTERIOR: College party–Night

The camera pulls back from the nerd’s head, and he lies in the same spot, with the fat guy on the couch behind him. Two good-looking guys approach, rummage through the nerd’s pockets, steal his wallet, and leave.

Announcer: “Party Dude Beer. Just because you drink what the cool people drink, that doesn’t make you cool. Or attractive. But it will make you forget that you aren’t. At least for a few hours. Until you wake up and realize you’re ugly, unpopular, and broke. And all the cool people are laughing at you.”

Singer: “Yeeeeaah, I’m a loser baby, so why don’t ya kill me.”

Announcer: “Dude, if you’re not cool, drink some other company’s beer. Stop making us look bad.”

FADE OUT.

NCAA STUDENT ATHLETES

FADE IN:

EXTERIOR: University football field–Day

The capacity crowd roars.

Football player Hunter Wallace (Voice Over): “Is I a leisure studies major what play football?”

Wallace flattens an opposing player on the field.

Opposing player: “Unh!! Aaarrrggghhhh!!!”

Fan of the opposing team: “Someone call an ambulance!”

Cut to:

INTERIOR: College classroom–Day

The room is filled with football players sitting at desks. Some scratch their heads in confusion. At the head of the class, the teacher points to a football and a basketball drawn on the blackboard.

Teacher: “Football. Basketball.”

Wallace, seated at the front of the class, looks into the camera.

Wallace: “Or is I a football player that done got paid to go to class?”

Cut to:

INTERIOR: Student Aid Office–Day

A clerk hands Wallace a check.

Clerk: “Here’s your scholarship check, Mr. Wallace.”

Cut to:

INTERIOR: English professor’s office–Day

The English department dean sternly leans over the disheveled professor’s messy desk.

Dean: “Wallace got a D, not an F, on that paper. I don’t care if he did misspell his own name. The chancellor feels the paper clearly earned a passing grade, you understand?”

Cut to:

EXTERIOR: Parking lot of the glittering football team clubhouse–Day

Wallace walks toward the camera, his muscles stretching his football jersey tight across his chest and shoulders. In the background, three huge football players walk out of the clubhouse as a skinny student with a backpack walks by. They push the student down and walk over him, laughing. Wallace walks up to the camera.

Wallace: “That’s tha thang ’bout bein’ uh leisure-studies major. You an’t gotta answer stupid questions like that.”

Announcer (Voice over): There are over 300,000 NCAA student athletes. Some of them will spend five years attending college on scholarships you paid for, receive bribes and kickbacks from wealthy alumni, keep their grades up by using tax-funded tutors, leave college before graduating, then go on to earn millions playing professional sports–and never give a dime back to their alma maters.

FADE OUT.

–Andrew Cline is editorial-page editor of the Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News in Manchester, N.H.