Jesse Squire runs the Track and Field Superblog, and he had an excellent post this weekend concerning collegiate T&F. I like reading Squire's stuff, because he puts up some really good content; but where I think he really excels are with his opinions of the current management of our sport, especially at the collegiate level.
This may be a little too simplified, but Squire's position on college T&F is that there is a ton of wasted opportunity. Squire contends that the failure to market the sport adequately, and the inability of officials to create a championship system that the masses want to watch have a negative impact on the sport. Click the link below to read the blog article:
http://track-superfan.blogspot.com/2010/09/if-i-were-king-of-all-track.html
Squire contends, and I agree, that the main fault of NCAA track is that meets lack emphasis on competition between teams. That is, American fans are used to team competitions, and to be a valid sport in the minds of Americans the team rivalry must exist. The quote that stands out the most to me from the article is "collegiate track is boring in comparison to collegiate cross country, because of the lack of team orientation and the lack of meaningful regular-season competition". Wow! Ouch. No offense to cross country--I personally enjoy it--but it is not the most spectator friendly sport simply given the distance to be covered by the athletes. With track the event is fairly self-contained in the stadium. Track and Field should be cleaning up, yet (at least according to Squire) it is not.
Where does this effect the high school athletes and the coaches they work with? Well, I think T&F is observed by high school athletes as a dead-end college sport as there is little fan support, lack of future, and limited television coverage. I would like to think that more meaningful competitions would boost fan interest, and eventually greater interest from athletes. As it stands now, how can I dissuade an athlete that is good at two sports, but comparatively better at T&F; yet they decide to play their second sport in college because of their perceptions of likelihood of scholarship money, success, fun, competition, and notoriety? That is a tough task for sure, and one that I'm not sure I have the persuasive abilities to overcome.
Hopefully the NCAA is easier to influence on this matter than they are for a football playoff system...
