Women’s soccer has come a long way since the US won the first World Cup in 1991. Over that time, the US added a second Women’s World Cup to its trophy case in 1999 and hopes to win a third next month. At the same time, another group of women — many of whom had also played for the United States — were helping to build a sports dynasty never seen before in college sports.
The women’s soccer team at the University of North Carolina, coached by Anson Dorrance, has put together a remarkable string of victories, winning a staggering 21 national titles over the past 30 years.
Dorrance’s exploits were chronicled by former Sports Illustrated writer Tim Crothers, who took a year off to write a book that became a five-year odyssey chronicling one of the most successful coaches in American sports history. “The Man Watching,” first published in 2006 and now available in paperback, reveals how Dorrance was able to build the University of North Carolina soccer program into what Sports Illustrated once hailed as “The Greatest College Sports Dynasty Ever.” Dorrance was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2008.
Dorrance has groomed more All-American players than any other coach in any sport. In “The Man Watching,” Crothers puts together in painstaking detail how Dorrance has been able to scout players and motivate them to succeed through his sarcastic wit. This book is a wonderful collection of stories, brining the reader insight into the psyche of a man who has nurtured hundreds of players over his career — including the legendary Mia Hamm — and how his success has brought the women’s game to the forefront of American sports over the past two decades.
I caught up with Crothers recently, where he discussed his book, the women’s game and the US’s chances at the upcoming Women’s World Cup in Germany.
What makes Anson Dorrance such a great coach?
I have always believed that the foundation of Dorrance’s success is his competitiveness. The guy hates to lose on the field. He hates to lose on the recruiting trail. He is 60 years old and he still plays pickup roller hockey twice a week and he hates to lose in that arena as well. He looks to recruit young women who share that quality, which he likes to call the gift of fury. There are a lot of moments in a soccer match where a player has to choose to take a physical risk and those moments often decide the outcome. Motivated by Dorrance, the Tar Heels have been taking those physical risks for 30 years and that is what has created the remarkable dynasty.
Why is it that Dorrance has chosen to remain at North Carolina rather than coach another college program or pro team?
Dorrance’s childhood was spent all over the world — from India to Ethiopia to Switzerland and he never really felt like he had a home until he arrived at the University of North Carolina as a student. He has lived in Chapel Hill for the last 40 years and he is a fiercely proud Tar Heel, though he admits that he seriously considered leaving UNC to coach at Stanford in the early 1990s until his mother, another proud Tar Heel, threatened to stick her head in the oven if he did.
How much credit does Dorrance get for discovering, and later nurturing, a player like Mia Hamm?
Dorrance says that he knew Mia Hamm could be great before he ever saw her touch the soccer ball during the first game he watched her play. He admired her tenacious attitude chasing the ball all over the field. But Mia didn’t arrive at UNC supremely confident. There is a famous story about a meeting Mia once had at Dorrance’s office when he flicked the lights on and off and told her the decision to be extraordinary was as easy as turning on the lights. By the time Hamm was a senior she was largely self-motivated. Dorrance once happened upon her during a brutal solo workout and later wrote her an iconic note that read, The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching. The fire was always inside of Mia. Dorrance was the perfect coach to stoke it.
The 2011 Women’s World Cup is next month. Dorrance coached the USA to the 1991 Women’s World Cup title and your book details his time in China during that tournament. How has the women’s game changed internationally over the past 20 years?
At the 1991 World Cup, there were really only two or three teams who could realistically challenge to win it. Very few countries had invested any time or money into their women’s national teams. The World Cup was not televised at all in the United States and US players had to send faxes home to report the match results. Two decades later, parity has arrived in international women’s soccer. The US team actually struggled to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, there are at least seven or eight legitimate contenders to win the title and the overall quality of the field has improved immensely. Every match of the 2011 tournament will be broadcast live from Germany on ESPN. What hasn’t changed is that many of the key figures on the US team, then and now, played at North Carolina.
In your estimation, how has Dorrance, a man, been able to be so successful at coaching young women?
Dorrance coached the UNC men’s soccer team first and he acknowledges that when he later began coaching both the men’s and women’s teams he made a lot of mistakes with the women by treating them exactly the same as he did the men. Through years of trial and error, he came to the conclusion that women should be coached differently. He never yells at his players, but instead pushes them with brutal sarcasm. He combines that with heartfelt notes of appreciation when he feels they are necessary. To this day, he admits that women can often be a mystery to him and he calls them strange creatures. His views on coaching men and women differently are controversial, even among some of his own players, but it’s hard to argue with the success of a man who has produced 21 national championships in 30 seasons.
