Small Mt. San Antonio College in California, one of the state's many community colleges, will for one day transform into the track Mecca of the world.

The Penn State women's track team, along with the best collegiate and professional runners on the planet, will unite to compete for the 47th running of the Mt. SAC Relays.

"It's one of America's track classics," Penn State coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "Last weekend [at the Big Ten/SEC Challenge] was a good tune up for us, now we hope to get after it."

This is no ordinary college invitational. Teams that represent the best collegiate programs, shoe companies and countries in the sport of track in field will be competing this weekend. The meet will not be scored, but the goal for Alford-Sullivan and the Nittany Lions will be to compete well against the greats who will be in attendance.

"It's a tremendous opportunity against the best collegiate and also the best professionals in the world," Alford-Sullivan said. "It's going to be the goal to either be improving upon or getting regional bids against pro athletes."

Penn State will bring about 21 athletes to the invitational, and all of them have a shot to qualify against fierce competition. The ideal situation would be for someone to pull a Connie Moore-esque performance. At last year's Mt. SAC meet, Moore defeated track star and Olympian Marion Jones in the 200-meter dash.

Moore will be participating in the meet this year in the 100-meters, but for Jones' Nike team.

Jones herself plans to run the 400-meter dash against Australian Jana Pittman, Jones' coach Steve Riddick said in an interview with Reuters. It will be her first race since the Athens Olympics last summer.

This year, there are several big names that the Lions have a chance to defeat on their way to qualifying. Freshman Shana Cox will be matched up against Great Britain's Joice Maduaka in a heat of the 200, which is an event Maduaka ran in the 2004 Olympics. For Cox's second meet of the outdoor season, this is quite a higher level of competition.

In another battle of huge age differences, freshman Gayle Hunter will face off against Nike affiliated Shelia Burrell. Hunter will not be competing in the heptathlon, which would have been an interesting competition with Burrell, who was the 2004 U.S. Outdoor Champion in the heptathlon. Instead, Hunter, who just turned 19 last Friday, will be competing against Burrell, 33, in the long jump.

Throwers will also have some long-tossers in their category. Junior Jennifer Leatherman will be competing against Olympian Jillian Camarena in the shot put. Camarena was the 2005 U.S. Indoor champ in the shot put, and took third in the shot put at the Olympic trials.

These are the kinds of matchups that Alford-Sullivan believes will be good for her young athletes. Seeing and competing against top competition has its rewards.

"Whenever you have idols and heroes in your sport, seeing them compete, you learn quite a bit," Alford-Sullivan said. "I think they will be excited to see the Olympians."

And the hope is that the enthusiasm in seeing this kind of competition will really help the Lions amp up their level of performance for the rest of the year. Alford-Sullivan said the plan in putting this meet on the schedule was to give her team good competition. And the Olympic level will probably suffice.