Nothing like this could be done in only a day. Rather, it's taken the National Lacrosse League three long months to injure itself like this.

It began with the league's failure to report that ESPN had rescheduled the air time for game one of the championship series.

Then, the league bypassed golden opportunities to actively promote itself at the NCAA Final Four and the World Games, opting for a small presence, if any at all.

The amateur draft has been rescheduled more than once, and will remain a closed-door, hidden proceeding.

News -- any news -- has been far and few between during the summer, as the league bounces further and further toward 1999 without knowing where it wants to put teams for the 1999 season.

And now Sports Illustrated fires at the league, kicking the league when it was already down.

The newly-issued 10 August 1998 edition includes a graphic titled "Stump the Fan," in which five small-profile leagues, including the National Lacrosse League, are put on display for the no-names that they are.

Take the quiz on page 24. If you can match the National Lacrosse League (choice 4) with the Syracuse Smash (choice E), the team that employs its star player in the ticket office (choice V), congratulations! You're either a lucky guesser or one of the apparent few who actually follow the league.

Attention like this, the league does not need. After alienating its own fans all summer, the last thing it wanted was to have potential new fans dissuaded from giving it a first look because its so small and meaningless. However, laughing-stock is what the league has long been riding perilously close to, and laughing-stock is what it is becoming.

Certainly, the National Lacrosse League is not beyond repair. Nothing it has done (or failed to do) this summer signals the death knell. Yet. To stave that off, the league must change its ways.

The first step is to uncircle the wagons of secrecy. Forget a final decision on where the league will expand; nobody outside of Buffalo has seen even an official list of prospects. Replies to electronic mail have been slow in arriving, and when they do, they are terse, vague, and resistive of cooperation with outsiders. What's to hide? (Private to the NLL: The fans are not here to hurt you. We want to help the future of indoor lacrosse as best we can. Let us do that for you.)

Next, pick the expansion city and settle any questions of whether teams will be moving. Every day of indecision means less available dates for the indoor lacrosse season. Minor league hockey and indoor soccer have each gobbled up many nights in Rochester, Syracuse, Baltimore and Hamilton. The National Hockey League did the same a long time ago in Philadelphia, Buffalo, and New York. Make a decision already, and get the schedule settled.

Finally, get up and make people take notice. Indoor lacrosse is an exciting sport and a great way to spend the evening. How many people know this, though? That's right, not many. Whoever is responsible for advertising your product hasn't done a very good job, and that blame trickles down to individual teams.

If other minor-league sports can draw people in, surely indoor lacrosse can, too. Minor league hockey draws off the popularity of the NHL; indoor lacrosse and ice hockey are based off the same sport. Indoor soccer teams use a variety of ticket deals to make a trip to the arena less expensive; the NLL can't do the same? It's a matter of copying marketing techniques that work. Discount rates work. "Jerry Springer Night" does not.

Only when the league takes the business of pleasing the customer seriously will the general public take the league seriously. Most of the NLL's mistakes have luckily been done in the presence of only its current fans. Now is the time to start making another piece like the Sports Illustrated feature never happen again.