DETROIT, Michigan.  In the wake of charges that their assistant coach Joe Cullen has engaged in bizarre behavior that includes driving in the nude, members of the Detroit Lion family have rallied around their embattled colleague.

            “Joe has had problems with alcohol before,” said Lions president Matt Millen, “but there are plenty of rehab options available for that.  There’s really no twelve-step program for driving around naked.”

            Nude driving has been certified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder, and is referred to by clinical professionals as “transient frontal lobe subluxation”, which Lions trainer Jake Gaskins translates as “brain cramp”.  Most Americans refer to the disorder as “Godiva Syndrome”, after the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who rode a horse naked through the streets of Coventry, England at her husband’s request in exchange for his agreement to reduce taxes on his tenants.

            In the absence of a recognized therapeutic technique to cure the disorder, Lions’ strength and conditioning staff have planned their own amateur treatment which they say will begin with a visit to a show by the Chippendales, a male strip-tease troupe, at a nightclub in an undisclosed Detroit suburb tonight.  “We want Joe to understand there’s nothing pretty about the typical male body, and if there is, then there’s something seriously wrong with the guy,” said strength and conditioning coach Ben Anthony.

            “Tomorrow we’ll take him to a body-building competition where the men get so slicked up it’ll make you sick,” Anthony said with a tone of disgust.

“Finally, on Sunday, we’ll deliver the knockout punch.  A visit to the steam room at the Boll Family YMCA.   If that doesn’t cure him,” trainer Gaskins said, “there’s no hope.”

 Copyright 2006, Con Chapman