Over the past couple weeks, Kathleen Doyle, Spencer Lee, and Luka Garza have all been recognized by the Big Ten for being the best athlete in the conference in their sport.

Tom Brands was also named the Big Ten Wrestling Coach of the Year honor, and Lisa Bluder and Fran McCaffery have been praised for their work this season as well.

There have been many stories written and tweets sent regarding the dominance of Iowa’s winter sports this season. All these previously mentioned accolades have been earned and the recognition these sports are getting is well deserved. Unfortunately, it’s often only limited to these three sports.

It’s time the Iowa track and field program got some respect.

Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams are ranked in the top 20 in the country this season. The men are coming off of a Big Ten Outdoor Championship title last season and finished second at the recent indoor conference meet.

The women’s team is led by maybe the best, and definitely the most underrated, athlete Iowa currently has to offer — thrower Laulauga Tausaga.

Tausaga just won her second consecutive Midwest Regional Female Field Athlete of the Year honor. She’s the first woman in program history to earn regional honors in back-to-back years. The senior won gold in the weight throw and silver in the shot put in the 2020 Big Ten Indoor Championships.

After that performance, Tausaga’s resume includes four Big Ten Championships, an NCAA title in the discus, and school records in the indoor shot put and weight throw and the outdoor shot put, discus, and hammer throw.

That is as deserving of as much recognition as anything else currently happening in Iowa athletics.

Also at the most recent Big Ten Indoor Championships, sprinter Wayne Lawrence took home three gold medals, and hurdler Jaylan McConico continued his dominance in the 60-meter hurdles, winning a conference championship.

Tausaga and Lawrence were named the Field and Track Athletes of the Big Ten Championships.

Still, these athletes and the track and field team as a whole are often not included in stories recapping how successful Iowa’s winter sports have been or all the awards Hawkeye athletes are winning.

Most media members who cover Iowa athletics don’t cover track and field. Most Hawkeye fans don’t travel to the Recreation Building or Cretzmeyer Track to watch every track meet. Track meets are not something the university builds entire weekends around like football games.

That’s likely not going to change no matter how good the teams are.

What needs to change is the attention the program as a whole gets. Iowa Director of Track and Field Joey Woody has built Iowa into not only one of the best programs in the Big Ten, but one of the best in the country.

This isn’t saying that the other sports should receive less attention, or that track and field even needs to get the same coverage as a sport such as men’s basketball. It’s just not going to happen.

But the next time there are lists about the great accomplishments by Iowa athletes, or how successful different Hawkeye programs and coaches have been this season — track needs to be included, because it deserves to be.