Nicki Jhabvala: Team Unity Helps Tar Heels to Title

Nicki Jhabvala, Staff Writer
The Daily Tar Heel
Issue date: 12/5/06 Section: Sports

Anyone who has played for him, coached against him, written about him or is merely an acquaintance of him will tell you that North Carolina women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance is an artist - one so skilled at his craft that most have tried emulating him.

And after he coached a team loaded with underclassmen to the program's 18th NCAA National Championship on Sunday, that trend should continue."He's a master motivator," Texas A&M coach G. Guerrieri said. "You give him a little bit of ammunition to motivate his team, then he's gonna use that."

Angela Kelly, a former UNC player and current Tennessee coach, said she uses the lessons learned from Dorrance with her own team. "He's a large part of my coaching philosophy," she said.

Tim Crothers has written an entire book - "The Man Watching" - about the program and Dorrance espousing his leadership style. "Nobody can find a silver lining better than Anson Dorrance, and we can all learn from that," Crothers said.

But if you ask Dorrance, he'll say his skill of motivating his players is one that cannot be studied and scrutinized, simply because motivation cannot be calculated.

"People think you turn motivation on and off like a light switch," he said. "Motivation comes from all different things and not when you expect it."

Whether senior or freshman, each player headed into the season on the same page. As senior Heather O'Reilly said after the team's NCAA Tournament championship win, the freshmen are only freshmen by title. Once they step on the field together, they are just like the other Tar Heels.

"I think this team - from the beginning we knew it was special," senior forward Heather O'Reilly said. "Everybody got along so well, and everybody worked so hard for each other. I wouldn't rather win with another group of girls."

The nine new faces to the UNC squad faced the task of making their mark in a program with an incomparable reputation in its sport. But they seemed to kick off their career in style.

"We have come a really long way chemistry-wise and finding our proper fit and really getting to know each other," junior Robyn Gayle said. "Off the field you can get a sense of how close we have become."

The ability of a team to create what Dorrance called "one heartbeat in the locker room" is something few can do. While Dorrance has been credited as the master motivator, the ambition of the individuals on the field hardly can be glossed over. "There's something special about college soccer and the way that we train every day after school at 2:30," O'Reilly said. "I haven't found another training environment quite like that."

The Tar Heels' 18th NCAA championship victory was more than just another trophy for North Carolina. It was the product of 27 work ethics, mentalities and desires geared toward one goal.

And that is truly an art.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.