The naming of Dorrance Field at the new UNC soccer complex behind Carmichael is long overdue, but perfectly timed to christen the new stadium and Anson’s success on and off the pitch.
You have read it everywhere: Dorrance’s 22 national championships are more than any other sport, men’s or women’s, in ACC history. His women have been to 28 College Cups, the Final Four of collegiate soccer and are still going after the parity he created through Carolina’s popularity has made it harder than ever. He coached the first women’s World Cup team to a gold medal in 1991.
The Hall of Famer has been coaching soccer at UNC since 1976, two years after graduating, eventually succeeding his old coach Marvin Allen with the men’s team. Dorrance also coached the women’s program, which began in 1979, and took it over exclusively 10 years later after learning the difference between the gender of athletes.
He told me once that he started coaching women just like he coached the men, and it was a near disaster. He said coaches can criticize and praise men athletes in a team meeting, and he did that with the women too until he discovered women will stick up for each other when criticized and tend to get jealous when too much attention is heaped on one of them over the rest.
So he began being subtle in team meetings and, when he had to give his players good news or bad news, he pulled them aside after the group dispersed. And that has been his key to successful communication and great admiration and respect from them.
Through it all, from yesterday’s Mia Hamm to tomorrow’s Brianna Pinto, Anson has been Anson, loving his family, his job, his university and his town. He played roller-hockey with younger colleagues and kids for years, once played golf in a driving rainstorm and took off one article of clothing on each of the last six holes to show it was a matter of mental toughness to win in such conditions.
I got to know Anson in the 1970s when we played Carrboro rec softball together, and I once did one of these notebooks on our team that I labeled the Bores of Summer because, frankly, we were a pretty bad bunch of ballers.
Almost every time I see him, he chuckles about the Bores of Summer. That’s Anson, still the same after all these glorious years.
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