On one hand, cross country is a beautifully simple sport -- you just put one foot in front of the other, and run.

On the other hand, who wants to watch a bunch of racers run over a hill or disappear into a forest?

Indications are, more and more cross country fans are willing to do just that, so long as meet organizers make it reasonably easy to follow the progress of a race. And meet hosts increasingly are doing just that: staging races at fan-friendly venues where spectators can be close to and see most of the action.

Organizers of college cross country meets have good reason to make it easy for spectators to enjoy the event: The sport potentially could develop a mammoth fan base.

"The sport of cross country has a huge fan base," said Annie Schweitzer Bennett, head women's cross country and men's and women's track and field coach at Wake Forest University and a member of the NCAA Men's and Women's Track and Field Committee, which oversees the Association's cross country championships.

"The number of high-school athletes who participate is very large, and the nature of cross country -- a sport of will -- keeps people interested."

"You've got the die-hard fans, and you've got the family and friends of the kids who are participating," said Vin Lananna, former Stanford University cross country coach and a recent member of the track and field committee who became director of athletics at Oberlin College earlier this year. "You potentially have a tremendous pool; no matter where you're from, there is a team that you either went to that school or know someone who went to that school, represented at that championship."

Recent moves to make meets more fan-friendly -- looping courses, scoreboards, and public address announcers who keep spectators posted on developments during the race -- appear to be helping lure more and more of that fan base to meets.

"I've definitely seen an increase at the high-school level, and I've seen some growth at the NCAA championships, but I think the biggest growth I've seen is at the conference championships," Lananna said. He suggests that holding conference meets in the same locale for multiple years works best in building local fan support, and the NCAA track and field committee hopes that approach works at the national level, too, when the Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships move to Indiana State University in Terre Haute for a three-year stay beginning in 2004.

"You need to have it in good places, where there is a receptive crowd," Lananna said. "We wouldn't think of putting the basketball tournament in a place that couldn't draw a crowd. We wouldn't think about putting baseball any place other than Omaha.

"We had such great success at Indiana State last year, and folks at Indiana State did a marvelous job of making sure the course was spectator-friendly and you were able to get around and see most of it; they had an outstanding announcer, who did an marvelous job of keeping the fans in tune with what was going on; they had it late enough in the day that people actually could get to it."

Modeling other successses

This will not be the first time the NCAA has staged the Division I meet in the same locale for multiple years. In fact, the first 26 championships were staged at Michigan State University beginning in 1938, and two other sites -- the University of Kansas (1964 and 1965) and Wichita State University (1980 and 1981) -- have hosted back-to-back meets.

But much has changed since then.

The most noticeable change is in technology. Developments like a computer chip in runners' shoes -- which can produce instantaneous results at the end of the race and even rank teams at mid-race -- increasingly are finding acceptance at cross country meets, especially at the high-school level, and remains under consideration for use at NCAA championships.

Even without the chip, race progress can be reported on scoreboards or relayed by announcers, and final results can be computed and reported to spectators quickly after completion of the event.

And courses clearly are being designed with spectators in mind.

"What we need to do in the United States, with cross country and track and field as a sport, is take a look at a model that's been successful," Lananna said. "The world cross country championships -- the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) -- is a phenomenal success; 20,000 people watching the cross country world championships, they shoot flares up at each kilometer so that people no matter where they are standing can actually see (progress of the race).

"The scoreboard is certainly a step in that direction," he said. "Having a course laid out in such a fashion that there are multiple loops, that you can understand where people are going, is important.

"We need to focus our attention on those venues and sites that are successful, which we've done in every other sport. Those that have been successful, there's been a reason for it -- they've been fan-friendly sites."

"The three-year move to Terre Haute is a great move for cross country," Bennett said, citing not just Indiana State's commitment to staging a quality meet both for participants and fans, but also the location.

"The fans for cross country start in high school, and the Midwest is known for great interest in cross country," she said. "So, having the meet there three years, the NCAA is hoping to increase the fan base."

"Everyone can count on going to the same place for three years," Lananna said. "You know about it. Often, you have to search the Web or the newspaper to find out where the cross country meet is. We thought, let's put it in one place for three years. Basically, our objective was to grow the championship.

"If the meet in Terre Haute has any growth at all from the previous years' competition, I think there will be a lot more programs and institutions that will bid (to serve as host), because it will be a very, very successful venture."

Drumming up sites

While the enthusiasm for staging the meet in Terre Haute is genuine, Bennett concedes that it has been difficult to find hosts for the championships.

"The committee has to first have bids from suitable sites," Bennett said. "That can be difficult because the site you need to host such larger numbers (of participants) can eliminate many sites. The number of sites that have bid has been low since I have been on the committee."

"There aren't that many courses that can accommodate the number of student-athletes who are participating in the event," Lananna said. "If it's on a golf course, and it's in beautiful weather -- like along the West Coast, somewhere in Arizona or anywhere in California -- you're essentially closing a golf course and putting it out of commission for a Friday and a Saturday and a Sunday and a Monday, so that makes it difficult. And if you're in a place where people aren't playing golf, well, there's a reason they're not playing golf."

That reason, of course, is weather -- certainly a concern at Midwest sites, including Terre Haute, and certainly a factor that can discourage fan attendance at meets.

Bennett and Lananna both remember the 2000 championships at Iowa State University with some sadness, recalling a meet that was well-organized and well-promoted, only to see race day dawn with temperatures in the teens and a wind chill below zero.

"Unfortunately, our sport can be affected by weather," Bennett said. "A few years ago in Ames, the fans stayed away due to the unbelievable conditions. The next year (at Furman University), the fans came out in buses."

Still, producing an event that permits fans to enjoy the event goes a long way toward counteracting problems like weather -- although a reporter who covers distance running for USA Today and counts himself a cross country enthusiast advises keeping the sport's fan appeal in perspective.

"The important thing is that they try to continue to make it fan friend