Go to a list of Local Olympians

Go to Olympics Section

Go to Sports Section

Winning Attitude Goes National

Sometimes it's little things, such as when Missy Meharg finds Katie Kauffman's hand and gives it a squeeze as the U.S. Olympic field hockey team huddles before a practice.

Sometimes it's silly things, such as when Meharg -- the team's assistant coach who also is the field hockey coach at the University of Maryland -- and Kauffman, Meharg's player at Maryland and a defender on the Olympic team, run around the Olympic Village in Atlanta, "beeping" each other with the pagers provided to all the athletes.

Sometimes it's just one being there for the other, such as when Kauffman, one of the team's youngest players, needs a little advice from Meharg, a seven-year veteran of the national team.

But whatever it is that unites Meharg and Kauffman, they usually find themselves together -- be it in College Park or Atlanta -- and usually find themselves winning.

In 1993, Maryland won the national championship, with Kauffman anchoring the defense and Meharg prowling the sideline. In '96, the U.S. team could well end up winning a medal -- the team is ranked third in the world heading into the Games. The Americans begin round-robin play Saturday morning against the Netherlands.

It's been a long road for the U.S. team. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, the inexperienced Americans finished eighth -- out of eight teams. That meant the Americans would have to go through qualifying for the '92 Games in Barcelona. They finished sixth, but only the top five teams qualified.

Since then, the team has regained the status the United States hasn't had in field hockey since the team won a bronze at the '84 Olympics. At the 1994 World Cup, the team won a bronze medal. Last year, at the Champion's Trophy in Buenos Aires -- which pits the top six teams in the world against each other in a format similar to the Olympics -- the United States took third again.

"If we're going to medal, it's going to be this Olympics," Kauffman said. "We've got the home crowd behind us and we have a lot of experienced players. This is definitely going to be our Games."

It's also been a long road for Kauffman and Meharg. When Kauffman decided to take off what would have been her senior season to train with the national team, her chances of surviving the cut to the final 16 did not look good. Even though she was an all-American at Maryland, it just seemed too much of a big step for Kauffman, who three years earlier, as a senior at Wilson High School in Reading, Pa., had not been considered a hot prospect.

"If anything, she was my biggest project," Meharg said. "She was obviously a great athlete, but she did not have good fundamental skills . . . I've never had an athlete that's responded so well to coaching."

Meharg -- whom Kauffman largely credits for her emergence as a star -- never thought she would ever see the inside of an Olympic Village either. Meharg had been an alternate on the '88 team and was primed to go in '92 -- except, of course, the team didn't qualify. Now, as a two-time NCAA coach of the year winner, she's finally gotten her shot.

"I've never looked back and felt like I was missing something," Meharg said. "Now I just realize what an enormously satisfying road it has been. . . . It makes it even more rewarding to have someone on the team that I've had such a role in teaching."