Carmelo Anthony, a professional basketball player representing the U.S. on the Olympic basketball team, was being interviewed in China during the recently concluded Summer Olympics. Sitting cockeyed on his head was one of those effeminizing hairdo rags. His shoulders and arms were covered in tattoos.

What th ...

On second thought, maybe it wasn't the abominable do-rag. Perhaps it was the wrinkled cargo shorts, untied sneakers, T-shirt and scruffy beard sported -- a term used loosely here -- by Bret Favre recently as he stepped off his private jet and was feted in front of the sports world by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I'm sure somewhere Joe Willie Namath, the style-setting former quarterback of the New York Jets, the team Favre just signed to play for, was wincing.

When two multimillionaire athletes choose to dress like hobos, what hope is there of teaching young boys how to dress appropriately for an occasion?

I thought of Favre and Anthony earlier this week when attending a news conference for a terrific program called Dress for Success, which teaches women how to dress for job interviews.

Bev Perdue, the Democratic Party's candidate for governor, spoke to the assembled women about making a good first impression and choosing appropriate attire. Even though it's a great program, which I wrote about earlier this week, I kept thinking, "What about the boys?"

Jon Baumgardner, manager at the Men's Wearhouse in Durham, said Favre's news conference attire was probably calculated to reinforce "his image of the blue-collar, hard-nosed football player."

He may be right, but when you're stepping off a private jet and fixing to sign a contract for several million, any effort at blue-collardom is mere pretense and conceit.

Is it too much to expect a dude to put on a suit and tie for such an august occasion, even in August? Or to take off that #$@#% do-rag while representing America before the world? C'mon, 'melo: Even Aunt Jemima on the pancake box has removed her do-rag.

One thing you can say about Michael Jordan: Despite being purposefully, aggressively irrelevant in anything not related to basketball or money -- the most controversial thing he's ever spoken about is his jump shot -- the dude never appears in public looking anything but immaculate.

Were the problem of dressing like a bum confined solely to multi-millionaire athletes who for some reason want to look like bums, we could dismiss it. The problem goes beyond them, though.

Bronson Hissom, a wardrobe consultant at the Men's Wearhouse, told me his staff and he often try to counsel young men entering -- or, worse, trying to enter -- the business world who have no sense of what's appropriate to wear.

"A lot of young men think a pair of slacks and a polo shirt is something you wear to a job interview," Hissom said. "We tell them that if they're trying to convince someone to pay them $100,000 or more, they need to dress like an adult ... as though they can be trusted with responsibility."

Right on. If the examples of Favre and Anthony prove anything, it's that good taste and a good checking account aren't the same thing.

Perhaps somebody could start a program for men similar to Dress for Success. They could call it Dress After Success.

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