Primary activity was wake-up call for Carolina soccer legend

No American university coach has accomplished as much as University of North Carolina women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance.

For as much as he has accomplished on the field, Nick Newman writes of how Dorrance has worked hard to make himself a better person off the field.


It was an ordinary Mormon Primary activity, something that wouldn't stick in anyone's memory. But this day in a North Carolina LDS chapel has been seared into the mind of one of college sports' most legendary coaches.

An activity for fathers and daughters to strengthen their relationships morphed into a chance for dads to show off their fatherly abilities to other men. The task of Anson Dorrance, the architect of the University of North Carolina women's soccer dynasty, was simple: read a story to his second daughter, Natalie, in front of the rest of the Primary.

But it wasn't. He motioned for Natalie to sit on his lap to read the story but got nothing but a head shake. He tried again. A third time. The child didn't budge. For the man who had built Tar Heel soccer from the dirt and won more hardware than college basketball legend John Wooden, the rebuff was scathing.

"I thought, 'There could be nothing more embarrassing than this,'" Dorrance said. "It was indicative of the fact that I needed to spend more time at home."

At the time, Dorrance was coaching the men's and women's teams at UNC, as well as the U.S. Women's National Team. He'd won multiple national titles and even the inaugural Women's World Cup.

The words of President David O. McKay stung his mind: The coach had all the accolades you could want but felt he was a failure at home. It was an experience that drove the coach to change his game plan for life, and he would later coach only the UNC women.


"I was stretched too thin. I remember one year that I had one Thursday off all year, and I've recruited on Christmas Day before," Dorrance said.

"I never could say no when people asked me to do anything. I always said yes. I was crazy. But (that event) made me realize there was no way I could do all this if I wanted time with my family."

While it was a turning point in his life, everything else good in it could be pointed back to a decision made nearly 20 years earlier in Chapel Hill.