VALLEY ENTRY AN OLYMPIC FORCE.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

SYDNEY, Australia - Shelia Burrell was 12 years old and living in Albuquerque when the 1984 Olympics came into her family's living room like a missionary and changed her life.

Marion Jones was 8 years old and residing in Palmdale when the torch relay for those same Los Angeles Summer Games passed close enough to ignite her Olympic dream. Stephen McCain, a native Texan, has been carrying a torch for the Olympics since watching the 1984 U.S men's Olympic gymnastics team capture the team title.

For Burrell, Jones and McCain, the 1984 Summer Games were a seminal event in their lives. From that moment on, these three people of decidedly different backgrounds took off in dogged pursuit of the same goal.

Their shared dream would nudge Jones toward Thousand Oaks High and Burrell toward the Cal State Northridge track and McCain toward UCLA. This week it will land all three athletes in our living rooms as first-time members of the U.S. Olympic team.

Burrell, 28, will compete in the heptathlon. Jones, 24, will attempt to become the first woman to win five gold medals in a single Olympics, in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, the long jump and the 400 and 1,600 relays. McCain, 26, will grace a gymnastics squad that is hungry for a medal of any color.

These three athletes are among the roughly four dozen with local ties who will run and jump and swim and somersault and shoot and score and be hard for the rest of the world to ignore in Sydney.

Never mind seceding from L.A.; if the San Fernando Valley (and environs) was separate from the U.S., it would give Germany and Russia and China and host Australia a run for their medals.

Studio City's Lenny Krayzelburg is favored to win the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes and for good reason; he broke the world records in both events last year at the same pool where the aquatics competition will take place.

The Tarzana tag team of Jenny Johnson Jordan and Annett Davis is gunning for a gold medal in beach volleyball; former Pepperdine swimmer Jennifer Gutierrez is the top U.S. entrant in the inaugural Olympic triathlon; shortstop Crystl Bustos of Canyon Country is so overpowering she drove Dot Richardson, the star shortstop of the the gold-medal-winning 1996 U.S. softball team, to second base.

Gymnast Jamie Dantzscher, who was born in Canoga Park, won't roll over to the Russians and Romanians in the floor exercise; Inger Miller of Van Nuys won't concede a step to Jones in either the 100 or the 200 but especially the latter; Valencia's Anthony Ervin is perfectly capable of pulling off an upset of Russian Alex Popov and fellow American Gary Hall Jr. in the 50-meter freestyle.

Whatever they do in Sydney, our Olympians already have made an impact at home. The mother of one little boy told Ervin's mother, Sherry, the other day that the boy declared he wants to grow up ``to be just like Anthony.''

And surely somewhere in the area there is a little girl who will be mesmerized by Jones' five-gold-medal quest and will repair to her bedroom, as Jones did in 1984, and write down the words ``I want to be an Olympian.''

The Olympics are like their trademark five rings that way, interlocking dreams and dreamers and generations.

The Olympics are the pinnacle for the participants but also for their parents and friends and coaches and teachers whose technical and financial support and sacrifices helped pave the athletes' way to Sydney.

It's a path that's littered with tears and coins. Understand: It takes a small fortune to raise an Olympian and another small fortune to be able to see your child live his or her dream in person.

Jack Ervin and his eldest son Jackie bought their tickets to Sydney, but the family couldn't cobble together the airfare to send Sherry, too. She was resigned to watching her son race in the biggest swim meet on the planet from her living-room couch. Then the Budweiser division at Anheuser-Busch stepped in like a corporate genie and granted her every mother's wish.

Working through the United States Olympic Committee, the beer makers arranged for an all-expenses-paid trip to Sydney for Mrs. Ervin, who will be easy to spot at the International Aquatic Centre on the days Anthony swims; she'll be the proud Sherry bursting at the seams of her ``Go USA'' T-shirt.

The journey to Sydney has made all the Olympians winners, no matter where they finish in their events. Along the way they've learned life lessons that will last long after their 15 minutes of fame is over.

McCain thought for sure he'd make the Olympic gymnastics team in 1996 and was devastated when he didn't. Having to pick himself up from a fall like that taught McCain that failing is an inexorable consequence of trying.

``I learned so much . . . about the learning and the struggling and that is what I will take with me for the rest of my life,'' he recently was quoted as saying.

How could the former Bruins gymnast be any richer for having an Olympic gold medal in his possession?

Many more athletes than not will be taking intangible rewards home from Sydney in lieu of medals. Indeed, there will be athletes whose lifetime- best performances won't be good enough to put them on the medals podium. Which doesn't make their stories any less compelling.

Consider Marla Runyan, a former Camarillo High standout, who knows she has to produce a personal best in the 1500 meters simply to qualify for the Olympic final.

Runyan, 31, has been legally blind since the age of 9 because of a degenerative eye disease. Her vision is 20/300 in her left eye and 20/400 in her right eye.

Her disability, if you must call it that (Runyan never would), was widely written about during the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Sacramento in July. Since then, she has received thousands of letters and e- mails from people inspired by her success.

The mail brought with it an epiphany. The positive impact she has had on the public, Runyan now realizes, is ``more important than my race at the Olympics.''

She's right, of course, which is why we love the Olympics. It's so much more than the world's most-monumental multisport event; it's a place where hope and pride and resilience reside.

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Photo: Seeing the torch relay pass near her Palmdale home in 1984 helped ignite Marion Jones' Olympic dreams when she was only 8 years old.