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Local figure

Anson Dorrance

Anson Dorrance, a 1974 UNC graduate, coached soccer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 47 years: the men's team from 1977 to 1988 and the women's program from its start in 1979 until he announced his retirement on August 11, 2024. His women's teams won 21 NCAA championships.

Source: UNC-Chapel Hill: Anson Dorrance announces retirement after 47 years

7 works about Anson Dorrance are indexed here, as are 3 works by Dorrance.

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
Anson Dorrance, photograph, 2006
Anson Dorrance, photograph, 2006

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

UNC women’s soccer national dynasty1981 to present · 27 events · Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 27 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Anson Dorrance coaches the UNC men's soccer team Dorrance, a 1974 UNC graduate, coached the Tar Heel men from 1977 through the 1988 season and won 172 games with them.Search the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Anson Dorrance announces retirement after 47 years
  2. UNC starts a varsity women's soccer team with Anson Dorrance as its coach UNC named Dorrance head coach of its new women's soccer program in 1979, and he coached the men's and women's teams at the same time for the next decade.Search the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Carolina to honor Anson Dorrance with field dedication
  3. UNC women’s soccer wins the AIAW national championship UNC won the AIAW national championship before the first NCAA women’s soccer tournament. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  4. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1982 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Central Florida, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  5. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1983 NCAA national championship UNC defeated George Mason, 4–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  6. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1984 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  7. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1986 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  8. UNC men's soccer wins the ACC title and reaches the NCAA Final Four Under Dorrance the Tar Heel men won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1987 and reached the NCAA Final Four.Search the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Anson Dorrance announces retirement after 47 years
  9. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1987 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Massachusetts, 1–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  10. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1988 NCAA national championship UNC defeated NC State, 4–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  11. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1989 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson Dorrance, Mia HammSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  12. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1990 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final. People: Anson Dorrance, Mia HammSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
Show all 27 dated events
  1. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1991 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Wisconsin, 3–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  2. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1992 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Duke, 9–1, in the national final. People: Anson Dorrance, Mia HammSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  3. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1993 NCAA national championship UNC defeated George Mason, 6–0, in the national final. People: Anson Dorrance, Mia HammSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  4. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1994 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Notre Dame, 5–0, in the national final. This completed nine consecutive NCAA titles (1986–1994). People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  5. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1996 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Notre Dame, 1–0 in two overtimes, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  6. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1997 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  7. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1999 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  8. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2000 NCAA national championship UNC defeated UCLA, 2–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  9. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2003 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Connecticut, 6–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  10. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2006 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  11. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2008 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  12. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2009 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Stanford, 1–0, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  13. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2012 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Penn State, 4–1, in the national final. People: Anson DorranceSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I women’s soccer
  14. UNC dedicates Dorrance Field at its new soccer and lacrosse stadium The university dedicated the field at its new soccer and lacrosse stadium to Dorrance before the women's game against Notre Dame, in his 43rd year of coaching at Carolina.Search the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Carolina to honor Anson Dorrance with field dedication
  15. Anson Dorrance announces his retirement as UNC women's soccer coach Dorrance told his team he was retiring after 45 seasons with the women's program, days before the season opener; associate head coach Damon Nahas became interim head coach. His women's teams went 934-88-53 and won 21 NCAA titles. People: Bubba CunninghamSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel: Anson Dorrance announces retirement from UNC women's soccer after 45 seasons

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Anson Dorrance, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Indexed works

Works about or by Anson Dorrance. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

By Anson Dorrance

Oral history interview with Anson Dorrance, June 11, 1991: interview L-0054, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Dorrance, Anson · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Interview with Anson Dorrance, coach of the women's soccer team at UNC, recorded June 11, 1991, by Mary Jo Festle for the Southern Oral History Program. Dorrance describes a childhood spent abroad, in India, Singapore and Ethiopia, with regular stays in his father's hometown of Lewisburg, North Carolina, the tie that drew him to Chapel Hill. The conversation turns to coaching women, differences between coaching men and women, and the relationship between coach and athlete. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Training soccer champions /|cby Anson Dorrance ; with Tim Nash.

Dorrance, Anson · 1996 · JTC Sports

Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina women's soccer team, sets out his coaching philosophy with Tim Nash in a book published 1996 by JTC Sports of Cary, N.C., 159 pages with illustrations. Chapters treat expectations, what he calls the competitive cauldron, respecting opponents, the off-season, fitness, leading women athletes, working with reserves, and team chemistry.

NC Cardinal UNC

The vision of a champion : advice and inspiration from the world's most successful women's soccer coach

Dorrance, Anson · 2002 · Sleeping Bear Press

Anson Dorrance, the women's soccer coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, sets out his approach to the game in chapters on technical, tactical, physical and psychological training, the competitive cauldron, goalkeeping, high school and college play, and conditioning work. Sleeping Bear Press published it in 2002, xxix and 327 pages with illustrations.

UNC Library of Congress

About Anson Dorrance

The man watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina women's soccer dynasty

Crothers, Tim · 2010 · Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Griffin

Tim Crothers' biography of Anson Dorrance, the coach who built the University of North Carolina women's soccer program into a national dynasty, with the Chapel Hill program and women's soccer as the setting. St. Martin's Griffin edition, 2010, 360 pages with sixteen pages of plates, some in color. Topics include soccer coaches and women's soccer at Chapel Hill.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Dorrance, Anson.

NC Cardinal UNC Library of Congress

Winning isn't everything : the untold story of a soccer dynasty.

2009 · GK Productions

Documentary film on the University of North Carolina women's soccer program and its coach Anson Dorrance, released by GK Productions in 2009 after an original production in 2008 and running about 101 minutes. Topics include the North Carolina Tar Heels soccer team, women soccer players in Chapel Hill and the university's soccer program.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Dorrance, Anson.

UNC

The man watching : a biography of Anson Dorrance, the unlikely architect of the greatest college sports dynasty ever

Crothers, Tim · 2006

Tim Crothers's 2006 biography of Anson Dorrance, the University of North Carolina soccer coach whose women's program the subtitle calls the greatest dynasty in college sports. Published in Ann Arbor, with plates and portraits, some in color.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Dorrance, Anson.

UNC CH Historical Society

Dynasty University of North Carolina women's soccer

Patterson, Joe. · 1995 · JAMB Productions

Videocassette documentary on the University of North Carolina women's soccer program covering the seasons from 1985 to 1994, built from game footage and from conversations with Anson Dorrance, the head coach. Produced in Chapel Hill by JAMB Productions in 1995 with support from the UNC Athletic Association, the Educational Foundation and Adidas America; 57 minutes, color, sound, on half-inch tape. The title calls the stretch a dynasty.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Dorrance, Anson.

NC Cardinal UNC

An Investigation into the Coaching Approach of a Successful World Class Soccer Coach: Anson Dorrance

Arnold D. LeUnes · 2012

A study of the coaching approach of Anson Dorrance, head coach of UNC women's soccer.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OpenAlex record: Dorrance, Anson.

OpenAlex

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

  • Dorrance Field University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

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Background

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Anson Dorrance Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.
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Picture: Anson Dorrance, photograph, 2006. CC BY 2.0. Photograph by Jarrett Campbell; via Wikimedia Commons

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