BATON ROUGE, La. -- The NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships will undergo a major overhaul next season with the establishment of four regional qualifying meets and 3,000 to 4,000 athletes competing.

Under the change approved by NCAA university presidents, the number of competitors in next year's championship meet at Sacramento, Calif., will rise by 40 percent from the current 388 to 544.

Supporters of the change say it will give the championship experience to many more athletes and reduce the practice of sending competitors across the country for last-chance meets to meet qualifying standards.

"For the student athletes, access and the opportunity to compete was lacking,'' NCAA assistant director of championships Mark Bockleman told the Track and Field Writers of America on Friday.

He said only one of nearly 24 track athletes compete at the nationals, far fewer than any other collegiate sport.

The regionals will be held next May 30-31, although coaches have recommended the meets be expanded to three days to accommodate the number of races that will be required. The 2003 NCAA meet has been moved back to June 11-14.

Karen Dennis, the U.S. women's Olympic coach in 2000 and women's track coach at UNLV, is a member of the NCAA track coaches championship commission.

She called the establishment of regional meets "a great opportunity for many Division I institutions and athletes to experience the NCAA championships.''

"There are a lot of coaches who are opposed,'' she said. "It took 10 years to get to this, with a very marginal vote in agreement for it. That's why we are really trying to hammer this out and develop a format.''

Critics, including many of the top collegiate coaches, say it will harm the elite athletes who are being groomed for future Olympic success and will be costly to smaller schools that can not afford the expense.

"The elite athlete is going to have to do the conference meet, the regional meet, the NCAA and then have to go to the U.S. nationals in order to qualify to go to Europe as part of the U.S. team,'' Providence coach Ray Treacy said. "The body can only take so much and it will break down eventually.''

South Carolina coach Curtis Frye said he has fought the proposal for a decade but now must accept it.

"The university and athletic department are about the experience for the total athlete in all events,'' he said. "I think I know what's best for track and field. They know what's best for the university and for all sports in general.''

Many details still are being ironed out by coaches and the NCAA, including the recommendation that the decathlon, heptathlon and 10,000 meters be exempt from regional qualifying because of the difficulty in competing in those strenuous events twice in a two-week period.

Coaches have been holding lengthy sessions this week to try to work out the specifics of the new format. Those will be presented to the NCAA as recommendations.

The four regional meets will be divided horizontally on the map. The East Region will include more than 100 schools, while the West might not have 40.

"That causes an inequity in trying to qualify for the nationals,'' Treacy said, "because obviously if you're in a region with 35 qualifiers you might have to go three rounds and another region might only have 12 qualifiers.''

The NCAA will provide a small amount of money to the host site of the regionals, but nothing for the participating schools. That means added expenses that will be especially tough on already-strapped smaller programs. If their athletes make it to the nationals, there is the added cost of keeping them on campus for two more weeks to prepare for the NCAA meet, even though school will be out for the summer.

Sites for the four regions are to be selected next month. To compete in a regional, athletes must reach a standard equal to the 100th-best performance in an event. The top five in each individual event and the top three relay teams advance to the national championships.

In addition, seven or eight at-large athletes for each event will be selected based on performances during the season. However, an athlete must compete in the regional to go to the nationals, even as an at-large entrant.

John McDonnell, coach of the highly successful Arkansas program, said his opposition centers on what the new format does to the sport.

"It doesn't matter how it affects me, it's how it affects track and field,'' he said. "It has nothing to do with promotion of track and field, absolutely nothing.

"Track and field is fine. We've got great athletes. Let's get people in the stands. A regional meet's not going to get anybody in the stands, and that's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned.''