Anson Dorrance

The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life

Anson is an American soccer coach (in the USA it is referred to as soccer not Football) who is currently the Head Coach of the Womens Team at the University of North Carolina. Under his leadership the team has won 21 of the 31 NCAA Championships. His teams have a winning record of 91%. He has been named the NCAA coach of the year on 8 occasions.

In 1991 he also led the USA team to the first Womens World Cup. The USA have gone on to win the World Cup and 4 occasions and one-third of the players in those teams have come through Ansons team at North Carolina. Another notable alumna from his team is Sarina Weigman who led the UK to the Women's Euro 2022. Anson has firm and challenging philosophies that he has hones over many many years, and listenting to him made me reflect on the way I parent and lead.

In this fantastic interview some of the highlights for me were:

• How coaching men and women the same was a mistake. And his associated learning that women are better at making moral judgements based on how people are affected, and he personally would prefer to be led by someone like that.
• The concept of the competitive cauldron which shapes the culture in his team, and is based on rankings for performance on a multitude of ares at training and in games.
• His fantastic idea that "And if you're a female, and you're competitive, you are excoriated by your own culture, like there's something wrong with you. No, there's nothing wrong with you."
• And How the first step on any leadership journey is learning to lead yourself, and this is where most people fail because it requires action that scares people.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at [e-mail] or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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