Since its start in 1921, the NCAA track & field champion has been selected by scoring each event and than crowning whichever team – among the hundreds that compete – ends up with the most points at the end of three or four days of competition.

This inevitably skews the team race toward the speed events, where a small cadre of sprinters can – in individual events and relays – can essentially win the team title by themselves. In an extreme example, USC won the 1943 team title with four entrants!

So why not create a true team championship – as gymnastics does – and then hold the traditional mass meet later to crown national event champions? It can happen, and quite easily:

• Make the conference championship meets meaningful by advancing winners of the top eight conferences into four quadrangular meets (two entries per event per team) to be held the following weekend. Despite the silly scholarship limits in track – 12.6 for men and 18.0 for women – you need a real team to win a major conference title.

Happily, even the selection of the conferences from which the winners will advance can be done without politics, by using the performance-based U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) rankings, which are compiled weekly.

• In most years, the conferences contributing “automatic qualifiers” to a 16-team playoff system in track will be the ACC, Big 10, Big East, Big XII, Pac-12 and SEC and a couple of others. The USTFCCCA rankings, which are compiled by comparing actual marks across the nation and ranking teams by their combined national standing – a much better method of comparison than the computer and human polls used in football – can then be used to select the eight highest-ranked teams as “at-large” entrants. Everyone gets to play and politics has little to do with it: you’re in or out because of your marks.

For 2012, the 16 teams advancing to the regionals would include:

Men: Conference champions Arkansas (SEC), Notre Dame (Big East), Oregon (Pac-12), Princeton (Heps), Texas-San Antonio (Southland), Texas A&M (Big XII), Virginia Tech (ACC) and Wisconsin (Big 10) plus at-large qualifiers Florida, Florida State, Indiana, LSU, Nebraska, Texas, Texas Tech and USC.

Women: Conference champs Central Florida (Conference USA), Clemson (ACC), Louisville (Big East), LSU (SEC), Ohio State (Big 10), Oregon (Pac-12), Texas (Big XII) and Wichita State (Missouri Valley) plus at-large qualifiers Arizona, Arizona State, Florida, Kansas, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.

There can be no doubt that the best “teams” in the country are among these schools.

• Four quadrangular meets for men and women would follow in one-day formats. If held at a single site on the weekend, with the men’s meet on one day and the women’s meet on the other, these meets can be held inside of three hours (excluding the hammer, sorry), making them easy to televise.

The winners of each of the four quadrangulars advance to the national team championship meet, to be held the next weekend: one day for women; one day for men, again in a 3+ hour format.

• This entire process can go on concurrently with a “preliminary round” format for qualification to what would be the “national event championships” if desired. Simply reserve four places in the NCAA event championships semifinals for the top finisher in each regional quadrangular and let additional team-championship competitors in based on their marks and placement in the descending-order lists (as shown on the TFRRS results ranking site now used.

Using this style of “playoff” system to determine the national team champion has several advantages that can help the sport in the long term:

(1) It emphasizes the team aspect of track & field, often derided as an individual sport. Anyone who has been on a high-quality collegiate team knows this is wrong, but there are very few opportunities to demonstrate this.

(2) If successful, a true team-championship playoff system will be a catalyst for increasing the scholarship limits for track to at least one per event: 21, instead of the current limits.

(3) If properly presented – a major issue in this sport – the team “regionals” and “finals” will create up to 30 additional hours of television programming. This could be helpful to the NCAA in view of its new, 10-year, $500-million non-basketball championships television agreement with ESPN.

Additionally, the major conference championship meets – as qualifiers – could also become better possibilities for television; most are currently ignored.

(4) Having the team championship decided in the format outlined does not detract in any way from honors – All-American or NCAA “finalist” – compiled by individual athletes, and just as importantly, for their coaches.

(5) Costs are modest for this program: the only “added” travel is for the national team championship meet, for just eight teams (four men + four women). For the teams in the “regionals,” travel there would replace travel to the current “preliminary round” competition.

(6) The team championship meets could be held at a rotated or constant site. Baseball and softball have profited from having their “College World Series” in permanent sites at Omaha and Oklahoma City, respectively. Perhaps this is the right kind of meet to be stationed in Des Moines or Eugene, or elsewhere, if a community wanted to step up to it. The reality is that one-day quadrangulars are not that difficult to organize and stage well; with some continuity from year to year and adequate hotel and air travel availability, the program could grow in stature with ESPN television support.

Having announced UCLA’s track & field meets during a revived era of dual-scoring events over the past two years, there’s no doubt that fan interest is heightened by an easy-to-follow scoring format. Why not crown a real team champion in track and create new interest in the sport?

If it can happen in college football – and it appears that it will – why not in the sport football players love (second) best?

(You can stay current with Rich’s technology, sports and Olympic commentaries by following him at www.twitter.com/RichPerelman.)

Her comments came in the USA Track & Field segment of the two days of presentations of Olympic hopefuls and U.S. Olympic Committee officials to U.S. media. The hour-long program on track was split into two parts, the first a panel discussion lasting 34 minutes and featuring medal hopefuls Jillian Camarena-Williams (shot put), Demus, Allyson Felix (sprints), Hyleas Fountain (heptathlon), Trey Hardee (decathlon), Brittney Reese (long jump), Sanya Richards-Ross (sprints) and Wallace Spearmon (sprints). That session was taped and posted by LetsRun.com and was hosted by USATF Chief Communications Officer Jill Geer.

About two-thirds of the way through, Amy Shipley of the Washington Post asked the panelists about the state of the sport in the U.S., noting that it was the swimming finals which were moved for U.S. television in Bejing, and continuing:

There’s a feeling that there was this great era in track & field and maybe we’re not quite there. I was wondering if you all feel some sort of responsibility to bring back the name to U.S. track & field or is that a burden that nobody can take on, or am I exaggerating, or is that not even an issue?

The panelists looked at each and then Demus gave the sole answer:

I think we always want to bring attention to our sport, and , of course, if we can’t have that prime time slot, we want to take it. I think that every time we step on the track and perform, we know that we’re competing in a dying sport. We’re always trying to re-birth the sport. So, is it a burden . . . yes and no, because we can only do what we have been doing, which is our best. I think we are always for bringing our sport back to what it used to be. We’re the original sport.

Equally noteworthy was the follow-up comment by Geer, herself a former runner who competed at Arkansas in the early 1990s:

There’s something that also plays into that. First of all, with Jackie [Joyner-Kersee, referenced earlier in the panel discussion], you just have the talent, but also, a lot of times when these athletes are asked who their role models are, often times you name athletes who competed on U.S. soil.

So there’s definitely that element of, whether it was Jackie, or Michael Johnson, competing in the Olympics on U.S. soil seems to be what really puts the sport onto the next level, especially with the public at large. So, U.S.O.C., bring it back here.

The discussions continued, with individual athletes at different tables and Demus elaborated on her comments, as reported by Jim Caple of ESPN.com:

People are making $15,000 a year and calling themselves a professional athlete. To me that’s not a good job.

We don’t have anyone pulling in [viewers] on TV. Our races aren’t on TV like in other professional sports. It’s just less and less. They’re trying to do better than that – you can see that with the Diamond League meets – where you can see on who-knows-what-channel. We’re in the back somewhere.

Asked why, Demus added:

They say the drug thing hurts it and I think that does affect it, but you see people caught doing drugs in baseball and that doesn’t really hurt them that much.

I honestly think our track meets aren’t shown, and one of the reasons they don’t show them is because they’re so long. If we can keep the meets down to a certain number of events to keep the viewership to stayed tuned for 35-40 minutes, it might be better.

. . .

That’s why we need a great marketing team. I don’t have the answers, but more media time would help, more sponsors would all help.

Caple’s report is the only one found with comments from Demus during the round-table discussions. If anyone has a tape or a transcript, don’t hesitate to forward it and we’ll run it in full.

(You can stay current with Rich’s technology, sports and Olympic commentaries by following him at www.twitter.com/RichPerelman.)

1. Allyson Felix (USA), 10.92
2. Veronica Campbell-Brown (JAM), 10.94
3. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (JAM), 11.00
(wind legal: +0.7 meters/second)

So, with just 77 days before the Opening Ceremonies of the Games of the XXX Olympiad in London, the hard choices for Felix and her legendary coach, Bobby Kersee, are here:

(A) Run just the 200 meters?

(C) How about the 100 and 200 instead?

There will be multiple factors that will go into the decision, not the least of which will be Felix’s overall health and fitness at the time of the Trials. Some of the others:

• Olympic time schedule:
The decision between a 100/200 and 400/200 double isn’t made much easier by looking at the Olympic schedule. For a 100/200 double, Felix’s racing schedule would be:

100 m heats: 3 August – 7:05 p.m.
100 m semis: 4 August – 7:35 p.m.
100 m final: 4 August – 9:55 p.m.

200 m heats: 6 August – 7:20 p.m.
200 m semis: 7 August – 8:25 p.m.
200 m final: 8 August – 9:00 p.m.

That really isn’t much different than the 400/200 double, which does include one more round, but no more than one race on any day:

400 m heats: 3 August – 12:00 p.m.
400 m semis: 4 August – 8:05 p.m.
400 m final: 5 August – 9:10 p.m.

200 m heats: 6 August – 7:20 p.m.
200 m semis: 7 August – 8:25 p.m.
200 m final: 8 August – 9:00 p.m.

There is no rest day between the 400 m final and 200 m heats as there would be between the 100 m and the 200 m.

• Olympic Trials time schedule:
The Trials pose even less of a problem for Felix, as the mid-meet rest days offer her plenty of time off to prep for the 200:

22 June: 100 m heats/400 m heats
23 June: 100 m semis & final/400 m semis
24 June: 400 m final

28 June: 200 m heats
29 June: 200 m semis
30 June: 200 m final

Felix would be favored to make the U.S. team in any events she chooses, and is the unquestioned favorite in the 200; she has plenty of competition in the 100 (starting with reigning world champion Carmelita Jeter) and the 400 (starting with former world champ Sanya Richards-Ross).

• Prospects:
Felix and Campbell-Brown have traded the top spot on the medal stand in the 200 meters and the Olympic Games and World Championships since 2004, with Campbell-Brown winning Olympic gold in 2008 and 2008 and at the 2011 Worlds. Felix won the world title in 2005, 2007 and 2009 and Olympic silvers in 2004 and 2008, but faded to a bronze in the 2011 Worlds after finishing second in the 400 m there.

They’re essentially co-favorites for London.

Campbell-Brown is almost sure to run the 100, where she was the 2007 World Champion and won silver in that event in 2011. Fraser-Pryce is the defending Olympic champion, and then there is the powerful Jeter, who stormed past everyone in 2011 and was a convincing winner in the World Championships.

Of further note is that Felix set her 100 m lifetime best today in Doha at 10.92, and while the season is still young, she is still well-back of the personal bests of Jeter (10.64 ‘09), Fraser-Pryce (10.73 ‘09) and Campbell-Brown (10.76 ‘11), not to mention Jamaican Kerron Stewart (10.75 ‘09) and Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad & Tobago, who has run 10.86 already this season behind Jeter (10.81) at the Jamaica Invitational. Just medaling in the 100 will be very, very tough.

The picture in the 400 is much more confused. Richards-Ross ran a superb 49.5 relay leg at Penn, and has a 50.11 run behind Jamaica’s Novlene Williams-Mills (49.99 world leader; PR of 49.63 in ‘06) at the Jamaica Invitational to her credit this season. Defending world champion Amantle Montsho of Botswana (50.52; PR of 49.56 ‘11) and defending Olympic champ Christine Ohuruogu (50.92; PR of 49.61 ‘07) haven’t shown much so far this season, but it’s early. No one knows what fast-on-the-clock, but light-on-medals Russians like Anastasiya Kapachinskaya (49.35 last year) might bring. So the field is fairly open; Felix ran a lifetime best of 49.59 last year, but it was only good for silver in Daegu and took way too much out of her for the 200s that followed.

• What’s the goal?
Ultimately, Felix will have to decide what her goals are for the London Games. Still just 26, she has at least one more Olympics to look forward to and if she wants to win the 200 m gold above all, she‘ll be best off running that alone, or in concert with the 100.

Realistically, running the 100 could set her up for four medals, in both sprints and both relays, but it’s hard to believe – today – that she would win the century.

If, however, she has her eye on two individual goals and just one relay, then the 400/200 double is still out there. She has been through it once and would go through it again in Eugene on a more relaxed schedule in late June. If she is in good-enough shape, she can win the 400 and have a shot at the Jamaicans in the 200 as well, then on to a likely 4×400 m relay win.

Can Kersee get her there? Felix is a thoughtful and disciplined competitor, so she is unlikely to reveal much until she chooses her events for the Trials: the entry deadline is June 18, with final declarations due on June 20. The racing starts two days later.

[Update: At the May 13 U.S. Olympic Media Summit in Dallas, Felix was asked about a double and after acknowledging she would like to run two events, but as to which, said "Bobby will make that decision when we're a little closer."]

(You can stay current with Rich’s technology, sports and Olympic commentaries by following him at www.twitter.com/RichPerelman.)

He asked Coghlan about the decline in track’s popularity at that time and what the Irish star said then still rings true today:

This circumstance was underlined all too clearly in two different forums:

(1) The USATF’s revised posting for its chief executive position, issued March 26, which included this important statement:

Knows that USATF exists because of and for the athletes.

(2) Ken Goe’s weekly track & field column of April 11 in The Oregonian:

At some point, the sport needs to decide whether it’s about the participants or the spectators. If it’s only about the participants, than it will also be about obscurity.

That’s the crossroads at which American track & field finds itself today. The U.S. will, short of some natural disaster or a third World War, dominate the medal standings and placing table at the forthcoming Olympic Games in London. Those medal winners and their teammates will return to a country which will – almost immediately after the Closing Ceremonies – return its attention to the stretch run in baseball and the start of the college football and NFL seasons with little thought about those who stood on the Olympic podium while The Star Spangled Banner was played.

Can we foresee what Siegel will do and what he might bring to the sport? It’s impossible to forecast the future with any certainty, but Siegel’s own comments and those of USATF President (and search committee chair) Stephanie Hightower were instructive:

• Hightower, in her April 23 comments announcing Siegel’s hire noted:

What [the future] looks like is having the board and the CEO aligned and working together on common goals. It is not the board and CEO engaged in a power struggle or a political battle for winning over “hearts and minds.” . . .

As of today, and as we move forward, the board and our CEO are aligned in our commitment to execute this organization’s strategic plan. We share a vision for the future and a level of trust that I don’t think I’ve seen in my almost 30 years in this sport. . . .

In short, the “old days” of board, staff and volunteers sometimes working together on the surface, but working in conflict, behind the scenes, are over.

• For his part, Siegel stated in his opening teleconference, as transcribed by Chris Lamonica of FastLifeShow.com:

I’m just really excited about serving the organization and doing everything I can to support the athlete, the constituent and the staff of the national office. . . .

[We’re] really taking a hard look at the business model that we have with respect to investing our resources in the most effective way to support our athletes. . . .

We’ve been in discussions with leadership throughout the entire athlete ranks from masters to elite athletes and one of the things that we want to do is become a resource as the national office to the athletes. . . .

So we’re trying to reach out to diversify the revenue stream in a way that makes sense to serve the programs we have here at USA Track & Field.

If we take what Hightower and Siegel are saying seriously – and although both have supporters and detractors – they are serious people, then we can look ahead to an effort that:

• Will try to attract new sponsors to USATF, hopefully increasing grants and development funds for elite and emerging-elite athletes;

• Will try to find more sponsors willing to support individual athletes as apparel companies such as Nike, adidas, ASICS and others are doing now;

• Will try to showcase U.S. athletes in lifestyle and social media settings, perhaps with interviews or training segments on shows like “Today,” “Good Morning America,” “60 Minutes” and the late-night talk-show programs;

• Will not be creating a new series of meets, or an “American Track & Field Tour” that would become a weekly fixture on national television;

• Will not be fundamentally changing the meet structure in the U.S. – indoors or outdoors – to create a clear “schedule” for first-line meets on which news media would be directed to focus for coverage of the sport.

Hightower’s comment that “the board and our CEO are aligned” is the clearest assurance of the direction that USATF will take. Siegel comes from the USATF’s Board, of course; he became a member in 2009, then left in 2010 to oversee marketing and communications as a contractor and will now be the chief executive. So he’s clearly been “aligned” for some time, and I have no doubt that he will work tirelessly to achieve the objectives he has been given.

So what of the fans?

The early indications are that fan support isn’t high on the priority list. Lip service will be paid, of course, but no dramatic changes can be foreseen. This is in sharp contrast to the chief executives of sports such as baseball, the NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, golf and tennis, where the emphasis is mostly on television and new events (and their sponsors) to grow the sport as a spectator attraction, out of which the participants will – of course – receive the major share of the enlarged pot.

Did USATF make a bad choice?

From the standpoint of those who would like to see a mainline “track & field tour” and track as a major sport in this country, yes.

But from the perspective of those who have been elected or appointed to positions of authority in track & field, no. Hightower, the organization’s president, was a four-time national champion hurdler; fellow search committee members Deena Kastor (marathon) and Aretha Thurmond (discus) are active athletes, and Steve Miller was a long-time coach at Kansas State. Of the five members of the search committee, only Mickey Carter, a Fox News Channel vice president, was not a track & field athlete or coach, but he was an agent for professional athletes in past years. With this type of membership, why wouldn’t they focus on the athlete instead of the fan?

To those who wish it were otherwise, the time to start politicking for placement on USATF committees and elective offices is now. It’s not a hopeless cause, either: a once-vocal, non-athlete critic of the U.S. track & field establishment is now the highest-ranking American in IAAF history: Senior Vice President Bob Hersh.

I have never met Max Siegel, but I wish him well. After being strongly encouraged by friends, I applied for the USATF CEO position, hoping only to get a meeting with the search committee; I had no illusions of being seriously considered. My goal was to demonstrate what the possibilities for professional track & field could be in the U.S.; I’ll offer my plan in this space next time.

(Thanks to Bob Hersh for correcting an error on Hightower’s career; she won four national titles and the 1980 Olympic Trials in the 100-meter Hurdles, but was not an Olympic medal winner.)

(You can stay current with Rich’s technology, sports and Olympic commentaries by following him at www.twitter.com/RichPerelman.)