Back in 1982, when most people on campus were celebrating a national championship in men’s basketball, North Carolina women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance was puzzling over a female recruit’s simple question.
“How do your team members get along with each other?” demanded April Heinrichs after visiting Chapel Hill.
“Who cares?” thought the bewildered Dorrance, who at the time, also coached the men’s team. Men never asked him that. They didn’t care if their teammates liked them. And what did that have to do with anything, anyway?
It was the first of many lessons about the nature of female athletes Dorrance would learn.
“The first two weeks of practice April beat the absolute hell out of everyone,” Dorrance recalled. “She dominated practice, every minute, every day. And guess what? Everyone hated her because she wasn’t afraid to be the best. What she did was construct a mentality about competition that hasn’t died. And that legacy is what makes us unique today.”
That, and an eye-popping record of 191-1-7 since the 1986 season when Heinrichs, now head soccer coach at Maryland, was a senior.
Twelve of the 13 national titles in women’s soccer reside permanently in picturesque Chapel Hill, including the last eight. Dorrance attributes much of the success to the unusually competitive atmosphere in practice, which somehow translates into a tightly bonded team.
The attitude, once displayed by just Heinrichs, now infects his whole group of former high school All-Americans, including sophomore Debbie Keller of Naperville, who is tied for the team lead in scoring with nine goals.
“Women have the superior mentality that relationships are more important than the game. Men have a Neanderthal attitude that the game is more important,” Dorrance said. “I teach the girls how to compete and win and that it’s nothing personal. They teach me how to relate. It’s a wonderful growth experience from both sides.”
Dorrance, 43, played at North Carolina in the early 1970s with assistant coach Bill Palladino, coached the men’s team for 12 years and is now in his 16th season as head women’s coach. In 1991 he coached the U.S. women, captained by his former star Heinrichs, to the first FIFA World Championship.
“Anson is more mellow now than he was as a player,” Palladino said. “I think he’s learned an enormous amount about relationships by coaching women and it has made tremendous changes in his life.”
This year North Carolina is 10-0 heading into a tournament this weekend in St. Louis, where they will play California on Friday and No. 3 ranked Notre Dame on Sunday. The Tar Heels have an unparalleled winning streak of 91 games, which broke the NCAA record of 88 straight wins, set by the UCLA men’s basketball team, but it is not official because the NCAA doesn’t keep such statistics for women’s soccer.
No matter. They keep plugging along, setting a brilliant example that other sports at North Carolina are only too happy to follow.
In current polls the women’s soccer and field hockey teams are ranked No. 1 and the men’s soccer team, after upsetting perennial power Virginia, is ranked No. 2.
Last year, buoyed by women’s teams, North Carolina had the best overall athletic program in the nation, beating out Stanford to win the 1993-1994 Sears Director’s Cup. The award honors the Division I school with the best performance in 22 men’s and women’s sports.
In addition to the Tar Heels’ eighth straight national title in soccer, the women’s basketball team brought home a national championship.
“What Anson has done is get a jump on everyone like Tennessee did in women’s basketball,” said North Carolina women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell. “The soccer team was great before other schools made the commitment. And they work extremely hard. I’ve had him come talk to my team when we’re losing, so they realize games should be easy compared to how hard they work in practice.”
North Carolina practices are short-usually lasting an hour and a half-and intense. Manager Tom Sander keeps statistics for 13 different drills, a practice Dorrance picked up from one of his colleagues, legendary North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith.
Afterwards, Sander reads off player’s names, and each yells out her result. “It helps push you to your competitive edge,” said sophomore Keller, a three-time All-American at Waubonsie Valley who was the ACC Rookie of the year last season. “I still don’t like to scream out that I beat someone, but we all respect each other and know everything is left on the field.”
Once a week there’s “Fitness Day”, a conditioning practice that includes running 10 120-yard dashes in 18 seconds each.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever put my body through,” said sophomore defender Amy Roberts, who prepped at Waubonsie Valley with Keller and is one of the team’s most improved players this year. “But what makes Dorrance good is that he realizes coaching women is different from coaching men. He takes the time to find out what motivates us individually and finds out how to get the most out of us.”
For the team’s 10 seniors, including midfielders Tisha Ventunni, Danielle Egan, Angela Kelly, goalie Shelly Finger and defender Dawn Crow, who have all started since their freshman year, keeping their undefeated record (now 82-0) is all the motivation they need. Other players respond to Dorrance in different ways; Roberts says she improves when she is taken aside and given criticism instead of singled out, while Keller prefers to be left alone.
“I’m pretty self motivating and I usually know what I’ve done wrong so I just like a pat on the shoulder,” Keller said. “He really knows what each person needs.”
And although around the country North Carolina still may be known for its men’s basketball program, Dean Smith knows better. Once, while in Chicago, Smith corrected a reporter, informing him that North Carolina was not a basketball school but a women’s soccer school.
And Dorrance loves to tell the story of what happened on a March day back in 1982, just before Heinrichs and her fiery attitude arrived at North Carolina.
“It was right after they won national championship I told (Smith) congratulations when I saw him in hallway,” said Dorrance. “He looked at me and said, `All we try to do around here, Anson, is keep up with the women’s soccer program.’ “
Which is by no means an easy feat.
