The most decorated coach of a single sport in the NCAA shares his coaching philosophy and how he helped turn the USA into a powerhouse of women’s football
“When I was hired the United States had never won a game in international competition. Five years later, we were world champions. The way we established the United States is the same way I established my collegiate programme,” says Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina women’s football team.
If you are reading this in the US, you will most likely have heard of Dorrance. Beyond the US, though, he is virtually anonymous. Yet he is one of the most successful American coaches of any sport, in any time. At 69 Dorrance is still going, 43 years after he took charge of the UNC men’s team and 41 after he helped to launch the women’s. He coached both for 13 years before switching solely to the women’s side, with whom he has won 22 division one titles. For context, the nearest to that record are Notre Dame and Stanford universities with three titles apiece. From 1986 he managed the US women’s national team for eight years, including to their first World Cup win in 1991.
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