Two Olympic appearances.

It sounds like an accomplishment most athletes would dream about, but it was Michigan field hockey coach Marcia Pankratz's reality.

Pankratz was a Big Ten field hockey player at Iowa before playing in two Olympic games in 1988 and 1996. She went on to coach the Wolverines from 1996 to 2004. Then, she left to start her own company, which she has since run successfully.

“It’s always fun to take on new challenges and kind of push yourself outside your comfort zone,” Pankratz said. “You only get to live once. … I’m a bit of a risk taker.”

After a four-year hiatus at Four Goals, the consulting business she founded to help high school athletes with the recruiting process, Pankratz ached to be back coaching and teaching student-athletes.

Before this season, Pankratz hired an associate to run the business for her because she could no longer stay away from Ann Arbor. She returned to coach at Phyllis Ocker Field in January after former head coach Nancy Cox resigned. Back at the helm of the Michigan field hockey program, Pankratz hopes to help the Wolverines win their second NCAA Championship in school history. In 2001, during Pankratz's first coaching stint at Michigan, the field hockey team picked up the first NCAA title for any female sport at Michigan.

“I remember when I used to be the assistant at North Carolina years and years ago, back in the early 90’s, we were talking about coaching,” Pankratz said. “I said the only coaching job I would ever look at would be the University of Michigan.

"It's a phenomenal institution and has great potential to be a national power, and I’d like to be a part of that and to be back in the Big Ten where I was a student-athlete.”

When Pankratz got the call that the job was open, she packed up as soon as the 1996 Olympic games were over, left Atlanta and headed to Ann Arbor, where she earned a reputation to expect the best from her players at all times.

“Marcia brings a certain level of intensity to practice and games, and she’s a little bit more outspoken,” former Wolverine and current assistant coach Kristi Gannon Fisher said.

A natural athlete, Pankratz played ice hockey until high school, when the closest equivalent they offered for girls was field hockey.

“I found out who the best team in the country was,” Pankratz said. “So I called up (Iowa) and went out there. I loved the Big Ten atmosphere and how they treated the student-athletes.”

And that was that. Pankratz played at Iowa for four years before making her two Olympic appearances, and she was inducted into the U.S. Field Hockey Association Hall of Fame in 2004. The same year, she left Ann Arbor to start Four Goals.

The Wolverines turned their record upside down the first time Pankratz arrived in Ann Arbor. They were 7-11 in Pankratz's first year in 1996 but won their first Big Ten title in 1997, got an NCAA tournament bid in 1999 and won the NCAA title two years later.

For Pankratz, the success was more of an expectation than a surprise.

“I think all of the young women, including the team that’s here now, came here because they want to be a leader, they want to be the best,” Pankratz said. “They want to be champions.”

But this year's team (2-6) is off to a less-than-exceptional start, and with the Big Ten opener this weekend, they are hoping to fit the pieces together and perform. Pankratz isn’t concerned though. She welcomes failure — what she calls "new paths on your journey" — and claims it is a contributing factor to where she is today.

“It’s okay sometimes to all of a sudden have some bumps in the road because it helps focus you in the direction you want to go in,” Pankratz said. “You learn a lot from it.

“Especially when you are coaching a team and you lose a game. You are going to learn a lot from not winning the game. So that makes you better."

Gannon Fisher recalls the 2001 season leading up to the championship.

“We weren’t expected to win, by any means,” Fisher said. “We won because we had a great team and not just great players on the team. We all always have (the 2001 title) in our back pocket as a great experience and something that we use every day in our lives.”

Luckily for everyone involved, Pankratz has set high standards for this year’s team while simultaneously embracing adversity.