It's the oldest invitational indoor track meet in the world and it is happening on the grandest stage of them all, Madison Square Garden.

Track icon Marion Jones will be using it as a launching pad for the 2004 season since giving birth to her son last year.

It's called the Millrose Games, and tonight Penn State's men's track and field team will have the opportunity to compete at the world's most famous arena.

"It is going to be great for our athletes and we are expecting a really big crowd," Penn State men's track and field coach Harry Groves said. "It is going to be a spectacular meet."

Participating at the games will be athletes from junior high school to college teams, such as Cornell.

Tomorrow, the Nittany Lions will go to the Triangular meet in Princeton, N.J., against Princeton and Connecticut. Both meets will be scored.

"The next three weeks will give us a hint of which direction we are going," Penn State assistant coach Mark Gottdenker said.

Every meet from now on will be used as a predictor of how close the Lions are to their goals.

"The meet is a benchmark to see how our training has been progressing towards the Big Ten," Ross said

Penn State has been using a late-season peaking training method in which the athletes are expected to peak at the championships.

Currently, the Lions are in a high-volume phase to improve their conditioning.

"We have been doing higher volume training to improve our fitness levels to build up a base," sophomore Dane Miller said.

The training should bear fruit soon for Penn State.

Though it is a potentially talented squad, the Lions' character could decide how they finish.

-- By Nkrumah Makinwa