Years ago, Sonja Hinish walked into the Multi-Sport Complex as a track and field athlete competing at a small high school.

As a Penn State senior, the experience still sticks with her.

"You're pretty much wowed the first time you see it," Hinish said. "For me -- and I know other high schoolers -- you get real geared up for running there because you don't get to do it very often."

Hundreds of other high school athletes will have the opportunity tomorrow as the Penn State track and field program hosts the Kevin Dare High School Invitational.

Dare was a Penn State pole vaulter who died after a pole vaulting accident at the 2002 Big Ten championships in Minnesota.

The Multi-Sport Complex hosts the Pennsylvania indoor track and field championships next weekend, meaning high school teams will get the chance to see the facility a week early while Penn State raises money for Dare's scholarship fund.

Penn State track and field athletes said their participation is mandatory for tomorrow's meet, which welcomes teams from New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

"We're immune to this track," Gayle Hunter said. "We're not mad about it, we're not happy about it. We're not competing, so that's the big thing."

Hinish didn't compete at the meet in Dare's memory when she was in high school, as she competed at a different invitational. After joining the Penn State team, she sold T-shirts to help with the meet.

"I haven't done any of the fun, exciting ones," she said with a laugh.

Others have, like Hunter and Dominique Blake. Hunter worked in the long jump the past two years and figures that's where she'll end up again.

Blake's been put to work in the long and high jumps previously, begging the question of how a sprinter ends up with the jumpers.

"Maybe I just like measuring," she said. "Measuring's fun."

For some, like transfer Fawn Dorr, the experience will be new. This will be her first time working a high school meet, and she could end up anywhere from being an official to working the jump pit.

"Normal, small things that need to be done, but nobody wants to do them," she said.

But the meet won't be all work.

"Sometimes," Blake said with a wry smile, "the coach has us go over and talk to them and try to make them future Nittany Lions."