What makes a great sports town?

In reality, it is a combination of things. Good teams, rabid fans, history, success, foresight and even a little bit of luck.

Considering all of this, does Milwaukee make the cut? Anecdotally, the evidence might indicate we do not.

Yesterday, my colleague Dave Begel chronicled the woes that afflict the Milwaukee Wave, who despite their six league championships and Hall of Fame-caliber coach cannot draw flies to the Arena.

Aside from the recent hiring of Andy Geiger, UWM's athletics department has not shown any signs of escaping from the gross incompetence of nearly its entire history. Of course, the jury is out on Geiger, who comes here with the reputation of being a heavyweight, but enters a situation with almost no infrastructure whatsoever. While his appears to be an inspired hire, without real progress in the time Geiger is here will mean that he was just another big name in an empty suit.

The Milwaukee Mustangs provide tremendous affordable family entertainment and is one of the best ticket deals you will ever find. Yet, despite their best efforts, they have somehow failed to capture the imagination of casual fans who might want to satiate their football fix during the Packers offseason.

Of course, it is the Packers who rule the roost and will certainly never loosen their death grip on the top spot on the Wisconsin sports rung.

Meanwhile, every other state team has been subject to the whim of public sentiment at the moment.

In the late 1990s, the Mustangs outdrew the Brewers on several occasions when the two teams were playing simultaneously. Before the arrival of Pat Richter and Barry Alvarez, Camp Randall Stadium was a ghost town on college football Saturdays.

Two years ago, the Bucks "Fear the Deer" run made the Bradley Center the coolest place in town to be seen. But after some injuries and losses piled up since the spring of 2010, fan apathy has never been higher.

So is Milwaukee a good sports town? Before you answer that, consider a city strikingly similar to Milwaukee in terms of national perception and demographics. A city that has been lauded and envied for the bold leadership that lifted them out of the doldrums of being little more than a footnote on a flyover state map.

In the 1970s, Indianapolis made a conscious decision to make sports its identity. What was not long ago a bleak, economically depressed, sleepy downtown became completely transformed with bold leadership, vision and even some risk-taking. Then-Mayor Dick Lugar said "we decided that Downtown Indianapolis wanted a heart."

That heart, first conceived by Lugar and brilliantly executed by his mayoral successor, Bill Hudnut, was making sports a centerpiece of the city's landscape.

Before it even had a NFL team to call its own, construction of the Hoosier (later RCA) Dome was approved using mostly public funds with a very quiet and non-controversial 39-9 vote in the Indiana State Legislature. State of the art track and field facilities were constructed, as was a natatorium and even a velodrome. All without much controversy, recall elections, heated public debates or public referendum campaigns.

In part because of the benefits of the sports facilities Indianapolis invested in, the once-desolate burg in Central Indiana became a destination, and not just for athletes and governing bodies like the NCAA, who relocated from Kansas City in 1999. Skyscrapers popped up "like a field of mushrooms," according to former Indiana Sports Corp. President Sandy Knapp.

National Geographic called Indianapolis the "Cinderella of the Rustbelt" in 1987. Smithsonian Magazine described Indianapolis as a "wonderville on the prairie."

All because sports put the city on the landscape map.

When Market Square Arena needed to be replaced, the NBA's best building, Conseco (now Bankers Life) Fieldhouse was constructed. When the RCA Dome became outdated, one of the sparkling gems of the NFL, Lucas Oil Stadium, rose from the ground.

Because of the vision of leaders like Lugar and Hudnut; and carried out through their administrations and successors, what was once a two-bit cow town became home to six Final Four's, the Big Ten basketball tournament and championship football game, last year's Super Bowl, and a host of many other major and minor sporting events that have brought billions of dollars in revenue to the city.

That is what bold leadership can do.

In terms of that, unfortunately, we are Milwaukee. Bold leadership has been tragic short supply in this community since Henry Maier opened up what was once a wasteland on the lakefront and turned it into the world's largest music festival.

Since then, it's been chirping crickets from the do-nothing administrators that have presided over City Hall.

The public rancor of getting the crumbling ruin that was County Stadium replaced was, until this current recall election cycle, the most bitterly fought battle in Wisconsin history. And for what? Raising a sales tax that no one has noticed for the right to keep our baseball team?

Driving past Miller Park an hour before first pitch and seeing the smoke billow up from the hundreds of portable grills makes it seem inconceivable that anyone would not have wanted Miller Park to be built. That smoke represents friendships and families; memories and a sense of pride in our team. Yet his franchise-saving vote change cost George Petak his job in the State Senate.

Who bickers over minutiae like a one-tenth-of-one-percent sales tax to keep your Major League team?

We did. But what is criminal is that we might just do it again if we continue to moan about replacing the Bradley Center.

Sports enhance our community like few things can do. Sports bring together families and strangers. Sports can heal our differences. A few months ago I was speaking to State Sen. Jessica King, a longtime good friend and college classmate, who was chosen to be one of four Senate escorts for Gov. Walker's State of the State Address.

King, a Democrat in a state obviously in the midst of more political turmoil than any other, lamented that she did not feel she had any common ground with Walker, a Republican.

"Why didn't you just talk Packers with him?" I asked, in the only time I have ever rendered a politician momentarily speechless.

Milwaukee can be a great sports town. But we have to be a good sports town first. We have to not live solely in the present but project out into the future. We have to embrace the teams we have; not just the Packers and Brewers, but the Bucks, Wave, Panthers, Mustangs, Golden Eagles and Admirals. We have to show that we can fill up the Milwaukee Mile to attract more races to State Fair Park.

The Bradley Center needs to be replaced. The Wave, Mustangs and Admirals need to thrive. UWM has to find some sort of athletics identity. Moreover, we need people in positions of leadership that look for ways to say yes rather than no.

Milwaukee can be a great sports city. But just saying that we are doesn't make it so.

We have to act like it.