The story of women’s soccer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was written long before the 2022 NCAA final.
Sure, the Tar Heels entered the game on a 10-year title drought, but they had won 21 of the 30 NCAA championships offered before then, plus another national championship the year before the NCAA started its competition. UNC-CH alumni account for a third of U.S. Women’s World Cup winners. The U.S. Soccer Federation is run by a former Tar Heel. Behind it all is the team’s legendary coach, Anson Dorrance, who was at the helm of the U.S. women’s national team for their first World Cup victory and led UNC to all 22 of its national titles.
For more than 40 years, the team has been the most dominant force in all of U.S. women’s soccer.
So with only 10 minutes to play and UNC up 2-0 against UCLA, it looked like the dynasty would be re-established. Instead, those final minutes now look like more of the era of change and conflict for the program.
The Tar Heels gave up two quick goals—the second with 13 seconds remaining—before losing in overtime. They followed it up with a 2023 season marked by more blown leads, including a brutal season-ending loss to Brigham Young University despite leading 3-0 at halftime.
The back-to-back frustrating season enders were already raising questions when The Daily Tar Heel reported that 21 players from the 2023 roster were leaving. Nine of them transferred to other schools, 11 went pro, and another went on to a non-soccer career. Then, three of the seven expected rookies for 2024 opted to go pro instead.
Even Dorrance’s famously stable coaching staff has been shifting. Three coaches have left in the past two years. One, Alex Kimball, exited after only a few months as a coach, following a university investigation into allegations that she was dating a player. Kimball said she did not date the player and did nothing wrong.
The Assembly interviewed eight former players who were on the team in recent years or have remained close to it, most of whom spoke anonymously because of Dorrance’s influence in the soccer world. Though some said they had good experiences with the program, others described a high-pressure system that they said isn’t supporting all of its young athletes—to the detriment of their wellbeing and the winning record that made Dorrance and UNC women’s soccer famous.
Dorrance said in a statement that he cares about all of his players and has “worked every day for 48 years at Carolina to make their college experience the best it can be.”
Read the rest at The Assembly.