With pro football camps now getting under way, that sport continues to grapple with the issues raised by the Bengals case and the problem of how to deal with athletes' conduct away from the arena versus their right to live as they choose.

"We hope to make clear to the players that there are a set of standards that are expected of them in regard to personal conduct on and off the field," said Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner of the National Football League. "We hope to make it clear that they have a responsibility to the league, to the clubs, to their families and to themselves.

"It's a matter of education, or of communication. It starts with the clubs, and particularly the coaches and assistants, the people with the closest contact with the players."

But acknowledging the other side of the issue, Tagliabue cautioned: "You have to be careful. There's only so much a league or club can do. You must be concerned about compromising a player's privacy."

In the last couple of years, there have been numerous incidents involving sports personalities that have shocked and appalled the public: Pete Rose was banned from baseball for betting on games; Magic Johnson, who says he had sex with thousands of women, contracted the virus that causes AIDS; boxer Mike Tyson was convicted of rape, and Steve Howe was banned from baseball after six previous suspensions and after pleading guilty to a cocaine charge. Now comes the Bengals case. Abusers, Victims Or Both?

Questions have arisen about how athletes and the clubs and leagues they play for are responding to all of this. How are athletes looking at the world now? Is their behavior changing or beginning to change in light of all the blaring headlines?

"You try to set out a set of principles for behavior," said David Stern, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, "and you hope that the players adhere to them. But in recent years, we've taken greater steps to lay out the shape and expectations of the league."

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In the last six years, the N.B.A. has developed a "support system" that includes a Rookie Orientation Program, which has three days of seminars dealing with many problems the athletes might encounter, from drugs and alcohol to sex and agents.

"It's important for the players and for the league to have such things in place," said Stern. "How people feel about a product, or a league, is as important as some of the issues they are forced to think about. Most people don't want to think about renegotiation and drugs and strikes; they want to focus on the game."

One player who has experienced an uncommon historical perspective on much of this is Rich (Goose) Gossage, a relief pitcher for the Oakland A's. He was a rookie with the Chicago White Sox 20 years ago.

"So much has changed from when I came up," Gossage said. "But it's not just sports; the whole world has become more complicated, more complex. In those days, we partied hard and no one really worried too much. Today, you have AIDS, you still have drugs, and if ballplayers do the same kinds of things in hotel rooms that once were done with women, the women are more likely to scream rape -- whether it's rape or not.

"And maybe we're learning a little more -- some of us, anyway -- how to respect women. Maybe we're all growing up a little, too."

From pamphlets to seminars to lectures by law-enforcement agents and team and league officials, there is more information today for the athlete than ever before in regard to the pitfalls away from the playing field. Sports officials, however, have had a history of either sweeping bad publicity under a rug or of neglecting problems because they were either too lazy or shortsighted, or because it was too costly.

In late May, the National Football League held two-day seminars on substance abuse and AIDS in Washington and in Denver, conducted by doctors who are experts in the fields. At least one player and the team trainers from each of the 28 teams were invited to attend. These representatives would then be armed with the latest information, which they could share with teammates. Grown-Up Talk About Talks

Major league baseball has taken an even more direct approach with its players. When each team comes into New York to play either the Mets or the Yankees, Dr. Peter Millman, hired by the commissioner's office, and Dr. Alan Solomon, chosen by the players' association, hold meetings about medical concerns in society, primarily AIDS.

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"Only players attend -- no media -- so the players feel free to ask questions," said Steve Greenberg, deputy commissioner of baseball, who helped organize the seminars, along with Don Fehr, executive director of the players' association, and Gene Orza, his associate. Some players want to know if one can get AIDS through oral sex. (Doctors say it is virtually impossible.) Some ask if AIDS can be transmitted by mosquito bites. (That, too, say doctors, is a negligible risk.)

In recent years, the major sports leagues have invited representatives of the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service as well as local legal authorities to come to their training camps to discuss the world at large with their athletes.

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"We also use what we call Resident Agents," said Kevin Hallinan, the director of security for major league baseball. "These are generally police officers who we hire in off-duty hours to be around the ball parks. They aren't there as Gestapo agents, but to let the players know that if there is any trouble, they can go to these guys."

In its Rookie Orientation Program, the N.B.A. conducts three-day seminars for those joining the league. In the seminars, the league even produces skits in which actors and actresses play out scenes that are true to the lives of athletes. Disreputable agents, drug dealers and scam artists come and go before their eyes.

The program is so successful that Major League Baseball adopted it. In one skit in its program last year, a beautiful young woman in a short, tight dress smiles at a player in a night club.

"She was really gorgeous and seemed so nice," said Mark Wohlers, a rookie pitcher for the Braves, who attended the program. "The player invited her back to his apartment. She asked if she could bring a few friends. He said fine. When they got to his place, she mixed him a drink. And threw in knockout drops. We then saw the woman and her friends empty the entire apartment, from his furniture to his wallet. They pulled up a van outside the home and loaded it up.

"But what was even more amazing was that at the end of this skit, the woman was introduced to us. She said, 'I'm on parole, and what you just saw is something I actually did many, many times.' "

Athletes were also warned of possible paternity suits or blackmail threats to call the players' wives. "I've seen hundreds of those incidents," said Bob Woolf, the sports agent. "Guys can get themselves into the strangest problems. I had one player who had three families in one town and fathered kids in each. And while the first family didn't know about the second and third, the second and third knew about the first." Knowing When To Step In

Despite the league's concerns, there are still limits on what they can accomplish.

"The most complex and difficult part of my job is balancing the individual's interests against the best overall interests of the game," said Fay Vincent, the commissioner of baseball. "I'm not worried about certain activities off the field. If some are, say, going to consort with ladies of the evening, then that's their business. But if they are going to be involved in affairs that impact directly on the game, like gambling or drugs, then I have to step in and try to do something about it. The hardest thing for me, though, is where to draw the line. And sometimes what you can do legally, and what you should do morally, gets fuzzy."

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He used Lenny Dykstra, the Phillies' outfielder, as an example to make a point: When Dykstra cracked up his car because of drunken driving, endangering not only himself but his passenger, Philadelphia catcher Darren Daulton, and other drivers on the road, the police took action, but Vincent did not. "But when we learned he had large gambling debts, then I placed him on probation," said Vincent.

But as society has grown more complex, so have the difficulties for athletes. Case in point: When Magic Johnson announced in November that he had H.I.V., the Laker star also told of a life style in which he slept with an estimated 2,000 women. Parties were a staple for Johnson.

Now, some athletes are so concerned about AIDS that they will not use the same soap in the shower that anyone else has used, for fear of contamination, something doctors say has virtually no basis in reality. Looking for Truth, Not Documents

Some athletes might indeed have been victims of their youthful arrogance or ignorance, or of their own greed and other excessive appetites.

In the Bengals case, Victoria C., who had contacted the Bengals organization about the alleged rape before taking any legal action, says in her affidavit that she had had consensual sex with one player but that he brought her up to a floor of the hotel set aside exclusively for the Bengals players and that she was "gang raped" there. Her suit includes the team as well as 15 "John Does," most of whom, she says, she can identify.

Last March, a lawyer for some of the Bengal players produced a document that he said was a "release of all claims" signed by Victoria C. after she was paid $30,000 by the players, who were in Seattle in October 1990 to play the Seahawks.

Victoria C. says that this document, which is three pages, is a fraud. She acknowledges accepting the $30,000 but contends that she signed a two-page "agreement" that said nothing about her releasing all claims.

She says that an official with the Bengals had promised to have some players talk to her and try to work something out privately. "He told me that if it went public, it would be a 'mess,' " she said.

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She says she received several phone calls from a few of the players. On one occasion, she said, she spoke with five players in succession on the telephone: "Each of them begged me to stay quiet, each told me that they had wives and children and that football was their 'bread and butter' and if I went public, their careers were in jeopardy and said it might wreck their marriages."

Mike Brown, the general manager of the Bengals, said he could not discuss the details of the case because it is being litigated. He did say, however, that the "release" that Victoria C. signed should be proof enough that the matter should be considered closed. He said he did not believe that it was, as she contends, fraudulent and done improperly.

What, in the end, is learned, or digested, by the players?

"The whole situation has obviously changed drastically," said Willie Randolph of the Mets. "I'd say a good many players are more cautious than ever. Like a little red light goes on over their heads. But how much more cautious? You never know. Athletes come from such a wide variety of backgrounds -- it's just up to the individual, what's inside him, how he was brought up."

Leagues and teams are left to deal with this wide variety of individuals.

"The league acts a little like a parent," said Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner. "You lay out the principles and you preach the message, and when you're dealing with young people, all you can do is hope that they get the message. But you never really know. And then you continue to reinforce it through teams, coaches, general managers, director of player programs, security representatives -- the entire support system.

"We see it as an extended family which is in place to help them if they need help. But in the end, individual responsibility is still the key. You simply can't get around that."