Penn State men's track and field coach Harry Groves loves to tell a story of a meet in 1979 against then-national powerhouse Maryland. The Terrapins rolled into State College featuring all-world hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah, who went on to play for the San Francisco 49ers, after racking up three individual national championships.

Penn State had an up-and-coming sprinter named Paul Lankford, who played for the Miami Dolphins after school.

As the afternoon wore on and the meet remained very close, it became clear that one athlete would have to step up and lead his team to victory.

One did, but it was not one of the All-Americans. Instead it was an anonymous pole vaulter who on that day topped out at a pedestrian 14 feet.

"Sometimes it's not the big names that actually get you a win," Groves said, concluding with the moral of the story. "You don't win without your backup guys."

This weekend, Penn State travels to Akron, Ohio, for its first meet of the year featuring NCAA style scoring, and Groves says that now everything changes.

While the Penn Relays are a showcase for individual talent, this type of meet is all about the team and Groves expects an extremely competitive weekend.

"Everything is pretty much up for grabs," he said. "It's hard to really dominate events with this kind of scoring."

In NCAA scoring, a single team can only have two athletes score points in each event.

This is much different than the meets that Penn State has entered thus far this year, which says that any team can place any number of athletes in all events.

This format puts depth at a premium because to win the competition and a team must be well rounded and well represented by its athletes in multiple events.

"You could definitely see this meet decided by a second-tier kid," Groves said. "A decent athlete, but certainly not a national-class athlete."

The meet serves as one of Penn State's final tuneups before it heads to the Big Ten Championships, which will begin Friday, May 14, in West Lafayette, Ind.