hy do we lose faith in our institutions? Why so much anger at the government? A close look at what's on tap sportswise this weekend provides some interesting clues. Let's consider the interesting marriage between college sports and the federal government.

Saturday, the national semifinals of the college basketball season, popularly known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association's "Final Four," will be played in Indianapolis. Competing to determine the college basketball champion will be favorite Michigan State, perennial North Carolina, up and coming Florida and the truly out-of-nowhere Wisconsin Badgers who are in the mix for the first time since 1941. It's estimated that each school will earn about $1.5 million from its appearance in the Final Four. The championship game will be Monday.

Now, undoubtedly many people who are reading this and thousands, if not millions, watching the games are parts of office pools. The winners of those pools will reap more from these games than any of the athletes actually competing on the court.

If you think this is going to be a harangue about whether college players should be paid, you're partly right. I personally think they should. But the issue is greater than that. This is about how young people — primarily young men — are manipulated and exploited for reasons both financial and social.

Last fall, the NCAA signed a contract with CBS allowing the network to broadcast the college basketball tournament for $6 billion over 11 years. On top of that, the organization has come down hard on any groups that use phrases such as "Final Four" or "The Big Dance" for commercial use. To paraphrase former Sen. Ev Dirksen, a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon, you're talking about real money. College athletics is big business.

The college athletes, however, are not allowed to be businessmen.

Consider the case of Erick Barkley. Until about a week ago, he was the talented sophomore point guard for the St. John's University Red Storm. Winners of the Big East Conference post-season tournament, the Johnnies were considered favorites to make it to the Final Four. And, yeah, I had them in my office pool bracket. Unfortunately, they were upset in the second round.

Barkley was the subject of multiple NCAA inquiries during the season. One involved his trading his '95 model SUV for a friend's '96 SUV. The collegiate body's enforcement division decided this was an infraction of the bizarre rules governing student-athletes. St. John's was required to suspend Barkley for two games.

Later, the NCAA determined that Barkley's high school tuition was improperly paid by a third party. He was suspended for a third game and required to pay back more than $3000. If you're thinking that the NCAA is beginning to look like the IRS, you're getting closer.

Anyway, the NCAA is now threatening St. John's with probation, because even though Barkley has decided to turn professional, his dealings with an agent are thought to be a violation. Student athletes are not allowed to have an agent. Barkley allegedly received various "improper" benefits, including cash, introductions to NBA stars and financial dealings with rap stars.

Rules are rules and one does not endorse their being violated. But, even if one accepts that a college's scholarship should be considered compensation enough for playing for the college, it doesn't quite explain how colleges should be allowed to sell t-shirts with the athletes' names and numbers on them and not have to offer the individual further compensation. In contrast, college coaches make hundreds of thousands in endorsements of shoes and athletic wear above their multi-million dollar contracts with the schools.

Furthermore, any other college students who seek to do what Barkley did, i.e. make contact with individuals in the professional career to which they have chosen to dedicate themselves, those students would be applauded for demonstrating initiative, drive and foresight.

Instead, in the case of Erick Barkley, he is practically hounded from St. John's. On top of that, the college may be sanctioned as "what did they know and when did they know it" questions begin.

I don't think Erick Barkley is a bad person. Has he broken rules? It would appear so, but this is a classic case of a quasi-governmental agency creating "crimes" through an obscene regulatory apparatus. It doesn't work in the "real" world and it doesn't work in the world of collegiate athletics.

Any group that signs multi-billion dollar contracts to air its tournaments on the one hand, but then targets the very athletes responsible for those dollars for "infractions" that are encouraged in any other business, invites corruption on an epic scale. And Barkley was only one of several athletes penalized this basketball year.

Right about now, some of the more perceptive of you out there might be asking, "Where does the NCAA come up with these stupid ideas — the federal government?"

Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, that's exactly where they learn it. Because, while college athletic programs have basically been subsidized by the skill and energy of grossly under-compensated male labor in large team sports such as basketball and football, they have simultaneously been forced by the feds to dismantle other men's sports programs.

In recent days: Southern Mississippi has dropped men's cross-country and indoor track and field after two straight years of financial losses. Brigham Young is about to eliminate its men's gymnastics program. Clemson will limit the number of non-scholarship players on men's athletic teams.

In recent past years, UCLA has dropped its lauded varsity swimming program which produced famous alumni such as Mark Spitz.

The reason for this is the interpretation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which mandates "gender equity" at colleges. Simply put, this means that the number of fully-funded varsity spots at a given campus has to roughly equal the percentages of men and women on campus. Now, it so happens that there are currently more women than men attending college.

This has created chaos on any number of places because, until recently, women were more likely to participate in individual sports such as gymnastics and tennis rather than the larger team sports of baseball, football and basketball. That is, the place where women demonstrated interest in participating at all.

Furthermore, a greater proportion of women are likelier to be older or married. These women are less likely to be interested in varsity sports, though their presence counts toward the overall male-female ratio that collegiate administrators are forced to follow.

The result, as the Independent Women's Forum notes in congressional testimony, is a numbers game that proves fatal for many men's sports:

"The most pernicious result of the [Office of Civil Rights]'s focus on the participation quota has been the unintended consequence of destroying men’s athletic opportunities. Schools with limited resources find themselves forced to reduce the number of male athletes by steaming into the "safe harbor" of gender quotas. Women’s teams cannot be filled due to lack of interest and men are not allowed to stay because there are too many of them."

Thus Southern Mississippi loses millions creating women's sports programs. Thus Clemson, thus Brigham Young, thus UCLA and on and on and on.

The institutions that are supposed to educate our youth end up teaching them the worst lessons: Cut deals and go for as much money as you possibly can, as quickly as you can. The government meanwhile discriminates against one gender in the name of "equity" for the other. And this is supposed to teach our young people sportsmanship and fair play?

This is why our institutions are failing us. This is why our government is no longer respected. This is why cynicism now runs through the blood of our youth and the streets of our nation.

One Week Down
Whew!! Well, folks. It's been a fun and dandy first week. A few of you asked, "What's with this 'first week' garbage? So you're a columnist with NRO! I thought you were already doing that." The previous stuff was just a trial. I seemingly have passed that audition. But Jonah and Rich can be hard task masters, so I am constantly striving for new stuff. I thank the many of you who dropped me a line to comment, critique and — where appropriate — correct. You also passed along some good ideas, which will undoubtedly become columns at some point in the near future.

This was a bit of an odd week. A rather personal intro piece, a dabble into movie reviewing and now I'm finishing up with sports commentary!! What the heck's going on!!! I promise next week, back to hard-core politics!

But, then again, this is still the Clinton era (for an undetermined period) and everything's political if you work hard enough at it.