From the Evansville Courier Press, January 16, 2011
The National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) hosted its annual coaches convention in Baltimore this past week, and offered its attendees the opportunity to watch, learn and listen from the most successful coach in sport.
Anson Dorrance's track record as the head women's soccer coach at the University of North Carolina makes him peerless, and compares pretty favorably with the great teams in all collegiate and professional sports.
Whether it be the New York Yankees teams of the 50's, John Wooden's great UCLA basketball teams, or the University of Connecticut women's basketball team's recent run, the gold standard starts with Dorrance's teams at UNC.
The Dorrance resume reads like this:
* In 32 seasons at UNC, he has won 21 National Championships, including 9 straight titles.
* Dorrance has a 696-36-22 record for a .938 winning percentage, and as amazing as that is, look in between the stats to see Dorrance and his Tar Heels' true dominance.
He has a 139-10-4 record in Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season games, and is 57-0-3 in ACC Tournament games — meaning he has never lost an ACC Tournament game that hasn't ended in penalty kicks. And his career NCAA Tournament record is 106-7-1.
* During a stretch from 1986 into 1990, Dorrance's UNC teams won 97 consecutive games and tied 6 over a stretch of 103 games.
* Doing double-duty between his responsibilities with UNC and the United States Women's National Team, Dorrance led the Americans to the title in the inaugural Women's World Cup in 1991.
* In 2004, ESPN listed Dorrance among their "Best Coaches of the Past Quarter Century," where he ranked 24th among coaches of all sports.
So what is it that makes Dorrance and his teams so special?
It starts with his ability to develop that large muscle inside your chest — an athlete's heart — placing a priority on mental toughness and building what he calls his players' "competitive cauldron."
A fiery competitor, Dorrance was able to draw a great idea from UNC basketball coaching legend Dean Smith. Watching Smith's practices, he noticed that someone recorded every touch of the ball in practice. Dorrance adopted this into his own teams by recording and grading everything his teams did in practice, and posted these results and rankings on thr bulletin board in their locker room.
He discovered that by doing so, his players started to hold themselves more accountable and become more competitive with each other.
Dorrance and his staff recorded data on practice activities like small-sided game results, technical tests and fitness tests. Utilizing this data with his players allowed him to create his "competitive cauldron" within his teams.
"Instead of whipping them verbally, the numbers would be whipping them. It wouldn't be personal," said Dorrance. "We wanted to create a competitive fury in practice. We wanted our kids to feel at home in intense competition."
I first met Anson 15 years ago when I had him as an instructor in an NSCAA coaching course, and got to spend more time around him while I was working at Duke University years later. He does an amazing job of getting his players to develop a level of accountability with each other to the point where they develop an intense fear of failure, as well as a tremendous drive to succeed.
Anson was honored this past week with the NSCAA Honor Award, which is a well-deserved accolade for the number of great players he has developed, titles he has won, and ability to create champions by encouraging their "competitive cauldron."
Creating competitors starts with creating a competitive environment in practice. Coaches and players should think about what areas you might be able to chart to rachet up the competitiveness of your own practices.
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