I've been trying to put a face on this threat to interscholastic sports WIAA executive director Doug Chickering fears will fester into an epidemic if everybody isn't more sensitive to the needs of the elite athletes.

After working on a mental sketch of what are becoming today's at-risk athletes — the elite ones, the best at their sports — I believe I've come up with a good composite drawing.

It bears a striking resemblance to Watertown senior Andrew Perkins.

He is/was the Goslings' gifted distance runner whose high school career — depending on who's telling the story — either took a strange detour or ended altogether this spring when he left the boys track and field team or simply didn't go out for his signature sport.

Perkins won WIAA Division 1 state titles in the 800 and 1,600-meter runs as a junior. He has signed a national letter of intent to compete at Northern Iowa next fall.

Published reports suggested Perkins and his father had a difference of opinion with the Watertown coaches over how Perkins was being handled and, among other things, that led to his departure.

School officials have declined to comment on the dispute and both sides have learned to go on without one another.

Perkins has been running a smorgasbord schedule of national invitational meets and local collegiate open competitions.

Watertown has been gearing up for today's Little Ten Conference meet in Beaver Dam while most of the attention on its program goes to a senior on its girls team — hurdler Lindsay Schwartz, a former state champion who will compete in track and field and volleyball at South Alabama next fall.

Still, the issues at the root of the Perkins flap are ones schools will have to fight more frequently, based on Chickering's vision of the future.

In frank comments at last month's WIAA annual meeting, Chickering warned of an alarming increase in national sports organizations looking to grab elite athletes off their school teams and accelerate their efforts at reaching the proverbial "next level."

It's a threat that, Chickering insists, state associations such as the WIAA should be taking seriously.

"If we don't, eventually we won't have to worry about public schools vs. private schools and drug testing and fair competition and facilities and charter schools and any of that," he said. "We won't have anything to worry about because we'll be out of business."

Whether a few elite athletes are powerful enough to leave the rest of them without a place to play remains to be seen.

I have my doubts.

Last weekend, for example, Perkins posted the fastest 800-meter time ever run by a Wisconsin boys high school athlete when he won the Wisconsin Twilight Invitational in 1 minute, 49.96 seconds (bettering his own mark of 1:50.17).

But, based on the limited audience at the event and feedback to the posting of his remarkable time, it's safe to say Perkins' latest feat didn't have quite the impact of winning multiple WIAA state titles in front of a packed stadium in La Crosse.

So what's the threat then?

Perception, for one. If there is any fallout from Perkins' absence, it was that accounts of the situation made an accomplished Watertown coaching staff — Perkins wasn't its first state-caliber athlete and won't be its last — look like rookies, unfounded here but a concern among those trying to make sure WIAA sports remain relevant for the elite athletes.

Precedent, for another. Perkins isn't the first prominent spring athlete to miss his senior season — Watertown Luther Prep golfer Dan Woltman (in 2005) and Oak Creek track star Victor Reynolds (in 2007) sat out for WIAA rules violations — but Perkins might be the most prominent to do so of his own choosing.

Fortunately for Chickering and the WIAA, the 2008 state track and field meet will have enough stars — such as Richland Center boys high jumper Paul Annear and Sugar River girls distance runner Ashley Beutler — to fill Perkins' void.

Unfortunately, the threat of losing elite athletes to outside influences won't go away.

Chickering understood that last month and made sure his concerns were on everyone's radar before the sports that drive the WIAA are not.

"If we're going to maintain the influence we have as schools on the games that these kids play, we're going to have to dig in," Chickering said. "If we want everyone to participate, not just the elite, we have to (address this)."

Contact Rob Hernandez at rhernandez@madison.com or 608-252-6173.