An athletics administrator recently described track and field as the "invisible sport."

"He told me, that's the thing you need to work on," said University of Akron coach Dennis Mitchell, describing his recent conversation with the administrator.

"When you don't have home outdoor competitions, and you're not successful getting into the media, and if you're not scoring meets, then for a period of time your sport becomes somewhat invisible to the public and to your administration," Mitchell explained.

Most games produce a final score, but that's often not true in college track and field. Teams tally points at conference and NCAA championships, and at the occasional -- but rare -- dual meet. But most track meets during the season emphasize individual accomplishments -- qualifying times, throws and jumps -- rather than team scoring.

In fact, on a given weekend, a track and field team may split into two or three groups of athletes traveling to different meets, representing a "team" in fans' eyes only by wearing its uniform.

The benefit is that coaches can guide student-athletes into competition that prepares them best for conference, regional and national meets at the end of the season. But the approach produces no scores to report in local newspapers, no meaningful rankings for use in comparing the home team with other programs across the nation, and no anticipation of a showdown with a rival school -- details that can prod a community into supporting a team and showing interest in its progress.

And when competition occurs mostly away from campus, it's easy to understand how track and field suffers from a visibility problem at home.

"Track, in the past, was a little more visible on your campus," Mitchell said. "But most track programs are on the road nowadays; it's switched around."

The challenge for many programs is to continue to develop student-athletes individually, while making the sport more accessible to supporters of a school.

A U.S. Track Coaches Association task force studying reasons for recent cuts in collegiate track and field programs is recommending 10 ways that coaches can generate greater local support for a program -- including scheduling more home meets to develop a fan base and make better use of facilities.

Mitchell, a member of the task force, adds that simply competing at home may not be enough; a meet's format and presentation also are factors in generating interest. He points to the relative strength of high-school track and field around the country as a model for collegiate programs to emulate.

"In high school, it's very simple -- you have winners, you have losers, almost every single meet is scored ... you go to it, you know what's happening," he said. "But a college meet has become a lot more complicated."

College meets at times appear to resemble practice more than competition. They may be conducted at a leisurely pace, and they may focus more on preparing participants for future events than producing results today. Sometimes even championship meets suffer from that approach, one observer suggests.

"One thing, perhaps, we do poorly in college track is the way we publicize the sport," said Dave Johnson, director of the Penn Relays, America's oldest -- and by most measures most successful -- campus-based track and field event.

"One of the most damaging things is going to a conference championship -- and the conference meet and the NCAA meet may be the best aspect of the sport -- and the announcers, sports information directors, everybody are constantly hitting you with, so-and-so just got an NCAA qualifier.

"What people have to understand is that these meets don't exist for the sake of advancing to the next round; these meets have to stand on their own. You have to develop your own tradition, your own heritage. If you're going to turn your meet into an event, you have to look at it in that light."

-- Jack Copeland