Surfer-haired Rick Neuheisel has so often parsed and pushed the letter and limits of football law during his eight-year tenure as a major college coach, he might as well have titled his playbook “Legally Blond.”

A graduate of UCLA football, USC Law, the Machiavellian Monkey-Business Institute and for now still practicing his craft at the University of Washington, Neuheisel has made a science of running his fine-toothed comb through the NCAA manual.

So Rick Neuheisel, of all people, didn’t think kicking in $5,000 to an NCAA basketball tournament office pool was wrong?

“I never in my wildest imagination thought I was breaking an NCAA rule,” Neuheisel told the Seattle Times.

You might buy that answer from an 18-year-old freshman with little world experience; not from a 42-year-old lawyer who ought to know his habeas from his corpus.

Neuheisel is in a fight to save his job after the Seattle Times reported the Washington coach had participated in an NCAA Tournament office pool the last two years.

Neuheisel reportedly contributed $5,000 and claimed about $20,000 for picking Maryland to win the 2002 tournament.

Neuheisel has wriggled off a lot of hooks in his day, but we can’t see how he survives this — let alone explains it to the IRS.

Although office pools are not illegal in the state of Washington, so long as a bookmaker is not involved, Neuheisel appears to have violated an NCAA rule.

The NCAA manual stipulates that coaches, staff members and athletes shall not knowingly “solicit or accept a bet on any intercollegiate competition for any item (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) that has tangible value.”

Given that Neuheisel has essentially admitted to this violation, the case against him appears to be a slam-dunk. And given his previous off-field transgressions and the 10-car pile-up of scandals in college sports this year, Washington may have no recourse but to fire Neuheisel, or ask him to resign.

If that happens, Neuheisel will join Mike Price, Larry Eustachy, St. Bonaventure, Georgia and Fresno State on this year’s trash heap of disgraced coaches and/or academic institutions.

The timing for Neuheisel could not have been worse, considering public and political tolerance for wayward coaches has pretty much reached saturation point. Also, nothing irks the NCAA more than charges of gambling — even if it was an office pool.

It helps little that Neuheisel’s story broke on the same day Court TV was providing gavel-to-gavel coverage of Adrian McPherson’s trial in Tallahassee. McPherson is the former Florida State quarterback accused of betting on college football.

You know it is serious business when Florida State coach Bobby Bowden is called to the witness stand, raises his right hand and swears to tell the dad-gum truth.

You wonder what Neuheisel can say now that can possibly save him.