Chapter 14: Closing the Gap - Developing the Weak Areas of the Women’s Game

So as we're sitting here in America going, we aren't sophisticated enough. We're not problem solvers. The French can't figure out how they're so sophisticated and they're such problem solvers and they can't solve us. So it is a real dichotomy because on the one hand we're stacking trophies, on the other hand, people like Anson, whose long term vision is that we win forever, is trying to stay ahead of it. Because at one point, if the French ever figure out what it is that separates us, that gap's going to completely close. Because right now all they do is complain. The Dutch team complains, oh, they are not so pretty to watch. And we beat them every time.

You're listening to the Vision of a Champion podcast with Anson Dorrance, eight time coach of the year, 22 time national champion coach of the 1991 Women's World Cup Team, hall of Famer, leader and mentor to so many in the soccer community. On this podcast, Anson brings on players and coaches to discuss what it means to be a champion. The drive, the passion, the desire, and yes, the stories.

Here's your host, voice of the North Carolina Courage and North Carolina fc Dean Linke.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Vision of a Champion podcast. I'm your host, Dean Linke, longtime soccer broadcaster and the longtime voice of the North Carolina Courage women's professional soccer team. We've got a special episode in store for you guys today as we move on to chapter 14 of the vision of a Champion. And today we get a chance to talk about how to close the gap and to address the inherent weaknesses and in the women's game. Our special guest today is Tom Stone, who is the current head coach and the winningest coach in Texas Tech history. As a player for the Duke Blue Devils, Stone scored the only goal in the 1986 national championship game, giving his team the win over Akron and giving Duke its first ever national championship of any kind. Yes, long before Coach K. Tom Stone and John Rennie were getting it done for Duke in national championship style. In fact, in January 2019, Stone and his 1986 Duke team were inducted into the North Carolina Soccer hall of Fame. In addition to his work at Texas Tech, Tom Stone is known for his work as the head coach of the Atlanta beat of the WSA and one of the most respected scouts for U.S. soccer and the U.S. women's National Team. And he is arguably the greatest, and I apologize for this, Anson, but the greatest color analysts in the game on A personal note. Tom and I were broadcast partners in 1996 when we called one of the original Colorado Rapids games. Yes, he was my first ever broadcast partner. And I am so excited to talk about how women's soccer programs around the country can close the gap and develop the weak areas in the women's game. Welcome, Tom Stone.

Dean, it's an honor to be here. I didn't know you'd let a Dukey on a Tar Heel broadcast, but to have you and Anson in here and be able to chit chat with you guys is a real pleasure. Thanks. Thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure. And I'm sure Anson agrees as well. And Anson, we'll start with you. Before we get started, tell us about your relationship with Tom Stone and why you thought he would be the perfect coach to talk about closing the gap and developing the weaknesses in the women's game.

Well, first of all, we thought. Tom and I together thought it would be fantastic to have a kid that I aggressively recruited, you know, out of high school and then lost to Duke. And I'm sure Tommy's going to share some of the stories of me on the sideline for UNC and him on the field for Duke, because we've got all kinds of great ones. But also, I really respect Tommy. And you're right, I thought he is the greatest broadcaster color, I've ever listened to because he's entertaining. He sort of gets your goat a bit with the stuff he says in the air, which, and you know this, I mean, the color guy has got to rile up the people that are listening to him, and he certainly does that. He's articulate, he's funny. I love listening to him speak, so I support all that. But also, he's got a long history in the women's game. If you go back to the first women's professional league in this country, the wsa, he was coaching the Atlanta beat. And so he goes back to the beginning of the pro game in this country. While he was fighting to get a college position somewhere, I was his advocate. I would call up athletic directors all over the place telling them that you have to hire this man. He's an extraordinary soccer coach. And so Tommy and I go back to the beginning. I never held against him the fact that we lost him to Duke because I've just always liked him, respected him, and I'm so glad he's with us.

So well said. And, Tom, please tell us about your relationship with the great Anson Dorrinson. Why you think he chose you to talk about this chapter, sir.

Well, first of all, I think I'm lucky to be chosen for this discussion because Anson and I, over the years have had so many conversations that had nothing to do with Carolina, Duke, not even necessarily U.S. women's soccer. Just the entire big picture of soccer in this country on the women's side. And, you know, there's only a few pioneers, and he's one of them. You know, we've lost a few, sadly, through the years, but, you know, Anson was really the rock that a lot of what we've done in women's soccer has been built on. And anybody who says differently is kidding themselves. So I think we've just had great conversations throughout the years. We don't always agree, but most of the time we do. And most of the time, I just go with whatever he said. So that's part of the way it's gone. History is. Yeah, I look North Carolina and Duke, and of course, you know, rivalry was. Was foreign to me being from Dallas, but I really enjoyed the process with Anson and just ended up choosing Duke. And then for four years learned what, you know, that rivalry is all about, not just watching our other teams, but going against Anson. And I think we were. I think fortunately we were two and two in my four years. So neither one of us have bragging rights. Although my last game ever was against Carolina, which is, you know, not a good memory. Chad Ashton in that group saw to that. But then our relationship picked up afterwards, and I will tell you right off the front of it, I was trying to make the US Youth national team. At some point in my college career, we just had a unite team. And at one of the national team camps I was at Duke, Anson made his way across the field to find me. Classic Anson. If he wants to say something to somebody, he has no qualms about it, and pulled me aside and said, this is the best I've ever seen you play. You have a great shot at this team. And I don't even know if he remembers that, but it was so typical that here was a guy that he's fighting tooth and nail with in the college game, but he saw something in me, and I kind of got Ansonized. I was like, ah, you know, like, wow, that was really impressive. That built my confidence. And then when I started coaching women, he was my first phone call. I started coaching girls while I was playing pro soccer in Colorado. And I just called Anson and picked his brain and ad nauseam about the psychology, the fitness components, the training regimens, and, you know, he was my first phone call when coaching girls was something that I wanted to do, and I'll be forever thankful for that. And that's really how it all began. And we just built the relationship from there.

I love that story, Tom, because Anson is still doing that. He played Robbie Church a couple times this year and pulled a couple Duke players over to tell them how great they were. So he's still doing that today. That's a great story for kicking us off. All right, let's get the conversation started and dive into chapter 14, and we'll start with you, Anson. Can you give our listeners a brief understanding of closing the gap, what that means, and what you think are the weaknesses within the women's game?

Yeah, and this is not. I'm not making statement to disparage the women that play. This isn't, you know, designed to be a sexist remark of, you know, where we are relative to the men. But let's face it, the university for the women's game is the men's game. And so we look at the men's game as where we want to go. Not that there aren't aspects of the women's game that I think are better than the men's game, but we have to look to the men's game. And so if you look through chapter 14, we talk about, you know, power, we talk about long ball service. The greatest difference, honestly, is heading communication skills. I know Tommy's probably had this problem with some of his teams. I mean, what's hilarious is you get them on their cell phones so they can talk to each other all day. But all of a sudden the game begins and. And everyone out there is a mute. Everyone's afraid to open their mouths. They have this great fear if they say something in front of a teammate or suggesting something as a leader, that they're going to be disparaged. And so communication is a huge issue. And if you go through this chapter, it's all there. And then originally the biggest problem was we weren't sophisticated. So our back to pressure was very low level. Although that, by the way, is improving dramatically. And if you just flip through this chapter, usually in the women's game, the way you beat a player is with athleticism. I'm faster than you are. I'm going to kick it by you, I think, beat you to this ball so you don't have this sort of deception that's a part of the men's game. Because all the men at an elite level are relatively close athletically, and the women's game, of course, had to develop this closeness in order to develop, you know, artistry and deception and then things like, you know, outside of the feet, it's very tough right now to make that a part of a women's game. And so all these different things, ball served in the box, it's very difficult for a woman to cite it and clear it as effectively as a man. So in the women's game, bunkering and countering isn't necessarily the best. And then goalkeeping, you've got a woman in there that's designed, basically she has to physically cover an area designed for men to defend. And so these are challenges in the women's game. Basically, a shorter person with less of a vertical jump in general, with smaller hands, now has to defend, basically a goal design for men. So that's just a quick overview of that entire chapter, but I'm sure Tommy has his own insights into what was challenging for him. So let me pull back a little and Dean, bring Tommy in with a question on some of these.

Yeah, well said, Anson. Thank you so much. Coach Tom Stone, what do you consider the weaknesses within the women's game and how do we close those gaps to make the game more enjoyable to watch for a traditional soccer viewer who may want to support the women's game at the college level and the professional level?

Well, you know, obviously Anson touched on a lot of the great points, and that was kind of in some chronological order too. Like, right, we didn't want a head, and then Michelle Akers was the best header in the world. And then we, we didn't want to defend with our head or attack. And then we had Abby Wambach, who all by herself could win a game with long service. And guys, one of the things that's an anchor, because I think Anson's pointed out a lot of the specifics, but one of the things that's been an anchor for us and a blessing is that we've maintained that our college game is a top five league in the world. And our women's national team is by far the best team in the world. And so as we're sitting here in America going, we aren't sophisticated enough. We're not problem solvers. The French can't figure out how they're so sophisticated and they're such problem solvers and they can't solve us. So it is a real dichotomy because on the one hand we're stacking trophies, on the other hand, people like Anson, whose long term vision is that we win forever is trying to stay ahead of it. Because at one point, if the French ever figure out what it is that separates us, that gap's going to completely close. Because right now all they do is complain. The Dutch team complains, oh, they are not so pretty to watch. And we beat them every time. So there's a part of us that is holding on to trophies, but we need to look beyond it. I think we are at the stage where creativity, sophistication, and just overall ability to break people down with your brain and small groups in tight spaces is that area that we just thrive on in the men's game. When Anson mentions them, it just gets us out of our seat. But why is Tobin Heath the only one anybody can name that seems to have all those character traits? Certainly Megan Rapinoe I think as well, but it's such a finite number. Part of it is we got to go all the way back to the youth game is we're looking at a big, strong, fast kid, and we're saying center back, outside back, eliminate that other kid, stop her from dribbling by you. And she plays outside back from 4 years old till Anson takes her and wins a national title with her. And he tries to turn her into a better player, but he's only got four years. So I think we're in this phase where there's not enough encouragement. The guys watch the game non stop. All they do is get excited about, I mean, pick a player. We could pick 50, 60, 70 world class players that our jaw just drops with their creativity and they live off of it. And they talk about it. They're like, did you see that? But go back to youth soccer. I'm guilty of it, too. Hey, Jordy, don't play that. No, look, pass. Just play it right into so and so's. Fee. That's easier, that's safer. We're all kind of guilty of it because we want to win, but the, the backlog process is we're not developing enough. Tobin's, you know, when's the last time we had an outside back as creative as Brandy Chastain? Guys, that's too long. And I love Crystal Dunn. Nobody's beaten Crystal. I love her. And you know what? Kelly o'. Hara, what a warrior. Like, nobody's knocking these two. I love them as players, but Brandi was ridiculous. Brandi was a Brazilian American at outside back, and we, we haven't recreated that player. Maybe the closest was Jaleen Hinkle, and she's out of the game now. So, you know, I agree with Anson on that subject, but I think we've got to find a way from youth soccer through college soccer into pro soccer that these players are developed with some creativity that is not punishable. Oh, why are you backheeling that? No, no, it's okay. Good try. You know, do it again. But culturally, we haven't got there yet.

Phenomenal breakdown. And I know Anson agrees about your sentiments about Jaleen Hinkle at left back. Moving on through this chapter, though, Anson, back to you. At the beginning of the chapter, you talk about the weaknesses of women in the game. Let's start with power. Why is power striking the ball so important in the women's game? Ironically, Tom Stone referenced Michelle Akers heading, she could strike the ball like a man. We need to make note of that. But why isn't striking the ball with the proper texture and tactics emphasized more in the women's game?

Well, here's what's interesting. In fact, love the fact that Tommy's on this particular call in this chapter. The thing that dawned on me when I was watching the old WSA is the one quality that was in common among all the great finishers that were playing in the league that year. And we had all these different kinds of finishers. You had Danielle Fotopoulos, you had Pichon. You had all these different kinds of finishers. And so I remember getting on the air and I remember asking the public saying, what do all these strikers have in common? Because, of course, everyone say, well, they all have this incredible, incredible ability to dribble. No, no, no, they don't. Fotopoulos was not an incredible dribbler. They all have this. They all have incredible size. No, the French girl, of course, did not. And you could try to pick out all these different qualities that you thought were the bottom line. This was the bottom line. The bottom line. The leading scores on each team in the league. In the WSA days, every one of them could knock the snot out of a soccer ball. And it didn't even have to be accurate. If they got it somewhere on the frame, it was going in. Getting back to what I shared earlier, what you've got in gold is you've got a goal that men are basically built to defend, and you've got a woman that's smaller, not as explosive in there. So if you hit the ball with power on the frame, it's got a real chance. And so for me, this developing power thing has been a critical element in player development. And all the players that I didn't convince to work on this, I was always disappointed when they ended up in the pro leagues and maybe didn't get a shot at the national team. One of the elements was they couldn't strike balls with power. So for me, that's a very fundamental thing that you can correct starting right now. But let me get back to something Tommy said, because I should have used this in the intro when I was reviewing all the weaknesses in the women's game. And I'm so glad that Tommy hit upon it. You know what? Our women don't watch the game. Even our elite women don't watch the game. But it's interesting, the name he picked of the Brazilian defender for the United States and outside back did watch the game. And why was she so creative and technical and clever? It's because she watched the games. So I spent half my life here in college. I even have this group called EPL captains. The EPL captains are a collection of players on my roster that actually enjoy watching the game. And there aren't many, so usually I have a maximum of four. Last year I had more because all the Brits watched the game. So Alessio Russo watched it. You know, Lata watched it because they came from the English culture, but the American player doesn't watch the game. Even the ones that are playing for the United States full team, we can't get them to watch the game half the time, so we can't get our youth to watch. So I really appreciate Tommy bringing that up because, yes, a part of our drive to become sophisticated is our young girls and young women have to watch the game at the highest level. And right now, with the FA women, Women's Super League on our television sets, we have a chance to study both the elite men and now, of course, the elite women. So thank you, Tommy, for throwing that out there for us.

And then let me just share this really quick story about exactly what Anson's talking about. I was scouting for, I think it was Tony DeCicco for the 99 World cup, and he sent me to an England France game, and neither team was as good as they are now. And I'm in Birmingham, England, watching this game. It's like raining sideways. And this whole junior high and high school girls group comes out of the bus and gets in the stands and they're sitting right up next to us where we were in the covered thing. So we were all kind of up under. Right after about five minutes, I literally had to turn and just look because I could not believe the conversation they were having about the game. We were watching it was like I was sitting with Anson, my buddy, Todd Schulenberger, Aaron Gordon, all my best boys. I mean, it was literally like they were grown women breaking the game down. And I remember thinking, we're in trouble because the 15 year olds that I coached, they were great players, but they couldn't have that conversation. So, you know, that's all about watching the game and then being able to talk it and think it and live it and, you know, ultimately be it.

Sticking with you, Tom. And Anson's right, Brandi Chastain, I remember in 89, she was watching soccer wherever she could find it. So your point was on. And Anson put an exclamation mark on it with rose colored glasses. I think of Abby Dahlkemper as it relates to long ball service. But Tom, can you talk about how developing a long ball service helps a player in the women's game?

You know, it's unfortunately too many of us as coaches think of it in just the terminology or the category that Anson used. Ball striking to goal, because that's an immediate reward for a great ball striker. When we got Alex Morgan and Sidney LaRue on the U20s for the first time, neither one of them thought about anything at all around the goal besides smashing it. And it had gotten them all the way to the top of the game. One was Golden Boot winner, one was Golden Ball winner. Now they finish in a variety of ways. They're both very classy. They bend it around keepers, they chip it. You know, they're both great in the air. But at 18, 19, smashing it had gotten to the top of the world. Okay, well, the other aspect of it, Dean, is you can't be on the field late in the game. If you're a defender who can't smash the ball with your laces because you can't clear it. So you're defending a lead. It's two to one and the ball's got to go 50, 60 yards and you can't do it. You're kicking it out of bounds, you're hitting somebody in the chest, you're hitting the first defender. If you're a central midfielder trying to go up the ranks, if you can't hit a big diagonal ball in behind the other team maybe only once or twice a game doesn't have to be what you always do, but when the game calls for it, if you don't have that club in your bag and you can't hit it, you're a midfielder whose range of play is now limited. Then we go to the forwards. Can you serve it with your laces, can you shoot second distance? And when you're in close, can you smash it past the keeper in traffic? So at every layer. And let's not even get into the goalkeeper if the goalkeeper can't hit it with her laces. Now that the game is with their feet, she's now limited. And I think I'd love to hear what Anson thinks about this. But we start telling kids that are committed to us, if you can't head and ball strike by the time you get here, it will take you one year to be a good ball striker. It's not six weeks, it's not crash course, it's not by the Ancidora ball striking video. It's a year. Because usually you're breaking some really bad habits first if they're college age before you can get them into some good habits. So it's just crucial at all levels. And you know, that's one of the first things Anson told me when I called him 30 years ago to say, I'm coaching girls. What do you got for me? He goes heading and ball striking. And I was so proud of like a 12 year old team that could smash balls. Anson, my daughter right now is a little shy technically, but she can smash it and she can head it and she can run, so we're well on our way.

So you're telling me I should hold that scholarship for her?

Well, absolutely. She doesn't want to play for her dad and she's already posed for a picture with you, so I'm already losing out.

All right, well, this is good because I want to finally, eventually get a stone to Chapel Hill. So this might be good.

Hey everyone, we're going to take a quick break here to tell you about our sponsor, soccer.com. anson has been coaching for 44 years and it seems like soccer.com has been around nearly that long as well. It's pretty close as the soccer.com business has been family run and based in Hillsboro, North Carolina since 1984. If you're a player or a coach who needs soccer shoes, equipment, gear, whatever it may be, do what the pros do. Head on over to soccer.com. this is Dean Linke. I hope you've been enjoying the podcast and I wanted to make you aware that Anson just released a new audiobook version of his hardcover book, the Vision of a Champion. Now you can listen to the book, narrated by Anson Dorrance, and switch back to the free podcast to hear the stars of the women's game discuss each chapter The Vision of a Champion Audiobook is available on Apple Books, Amazon's, Audible, Google Play, or wherever you get your audiobooks. To find it, simply search the Vision of a Champion Audiobook. Now, let's get back to the show.

So Anson will come back to you and then Tom, you can add on. We'll do it that way. Anson, can you talk about heading and the physiological differences between males and females when it comes to striking the ball with the head?

Yeah. So physiologically the biggest difference between a male and female is neck strength. The other huge issue.

When you're looking at these differences with heading a ball between young man and a young woman is the size and sort of. And this will be good density of the skull. And so do I know a lot about this? Yes. My poor wife was in a panic. Donovan was just born and he was into the hospital for his three month checkup. And Melissa calls me in a panic. She's over there and she says, is there a tape measure in the office? I said, what's going on? There's something wrong with Donovan. There's something wrong with what's wrong with Donovan. There's something wrong with his head. Just get a tape measure and measure your head. So all of a sudden, Delaine Marbury, my secretary, had a tape measure and all of a sudden I measured my head. I called it back into the hospital and you could hear these sighs of relief because my head and of course this isn't going to serve me well. This will be trolled is in the top 1% in size in the world and so is Donovan. So what could I do? When I was a player, I wasn't a great player. But I'll tell you a couple things I could do. I could certainly head the ball and if someone smashed my head with their head, they were in trouble.

So for me, this was my quality. I could get up and I could head the ball with power. So here's a girl or a young woman, her neck can't really stabilize the head when they're heading it. And what happens with a concussion is basically your brain bounces into the side of your skull because you can't stabilize the heading motion because your neck is too weak. When you couple that with a smaller skull size, it's dangerous. And Christine Lilly, believe it or not, even when she was on the full national team, hated the head. So I used to pull her out of heading exercises. And right now, honestly, we give the kids a choice. Whenever we do a heading exercise, we have the balls pumped and I've got This great pump that can pump it to 6 or 6.5 or 7. The way the men do it, it's pumped to 10 or 12. But FIFA has a range on the way you can pump a ball. So we allow the kids that are afraid to head the ball to basically select the volleyball, the under pumped soccer ball in a heading session. And here's hilarious. Back in the day, when I was coaching the national team, one of my friends was the quick goal chairman, and he came up to me and says, anson, is there anything you would like me to design for the women? I said, you know what? This concussion issue is something I'm really worried about for my game. So why don't you design a ball for girls and women within FIFA specs? So it had to be within the FIFA guidelines. And by the way, FIFA guidelines are wide. And so we came up with this ball, and all of a sudden, all of my girls, Michelle Akers and April Heinrichs, they called it the girlie ball. They would never use it in practice. So what would happen with these national team players, which was absolutely extraordinary. Whenever we had heading exercise, all these incredibly strong, powerful, brave women were doing a heading exercise. You can see every one of them now diving for the girlie ball to make sure that was the ball they were using during heading for distance competition. So it's really interesting. So right now, to this day, we pump the balls with different densities. And then when we play games, I always have my managers check the balls because for some reason, all the referees like to pump the ball so much, every one of my girls would leave the game concussed if we left it at that level. So basically, we try to have it at a certain level because. Yep, they don't like to head it in general. And what are the reasons? They're legitimate reasons. Smaller necks, weaker necks, smaller skulls. So we have to figure out a way to protect them within our game.

So, Tom, real quick on that. Should the women's game have a different ball?

Well, I think the medical community would have to give you the answer to that. You know, what percentage of concussions are caused because the ball is heavier. And I agree with Anson, though. The. The amount that it's pumped up to on the men's game and even certain opponents that you go play is just bizarre world. There's a legal amount that is much softer. You shoot it the same. It feels great coming off your foot. It's not flat. You know, it doesn't have that flat sound to it. And Edson, we do the same thing. We have heading balls that are all in a group. Some are hanging from the ceiling of our indoor. And I tell our staff, look, when we have a heading session 7, 7.5, don't go any higher, maybe even less for the freshmen. So it's something that we have to pay attention to. At the same time, it's an absolute weapon in the women's game because so few are great at it. Like, why are we picking out Michelle Akers and Abby when we could name 70 men? Because it is so unique when you are world class at that. Now, I would say our women's national team now is absolutely fabulous from front line to back line. And most college teams are just way better. Like, you don't want to. You don't want to play Baylor in a Big 12 game if they've got their whole heading group out there. They are just literally world class as far as a college team can be in the air. And that helps you win games, it helps you establish geography. You win on set pieces. You can clear anything. No matter what pressure you're under, you've got two or three that can clear it for you. So it's a balance, and we got to find it. And I think we are, for the most part, coaches are very aware.

Let's switch to leadership, which is also covered in chapter 14. And also because you two are two of the best leaders the game has ever seen. I mean that sincerely. Can you talk about. We'll start with you, Tom Stone. Leadership and communication between women teammates in practice and in games.

I mean, that's obviously a big topic. We could do a whole one of these on it. But I think that the key component for the captains that we've had is conversations on the front end of expectation. Because no one's teaching them leadership in elementary school, junior high, high school. They're. They're the best player in their club team. So the coach says, you're the captain. And they use. You know what girls love to say, right, Anson? They love to say, well, I like to lead by example. And you have to kind of pull them back and go, well, I expected you to lead by example. But there's a whole lot more, especially in this millennial world that's about you taking the time that you thought was yours and giving it to other people. And the term, the phrase that I always use is, listen, if you want to be a captain, you need to come to serve, not to be served. We will pump you up. You'll be on the COVID of the thing. You'll be on the, you know, the sports, the social media, you'll be on the poster. We'll take care of you. But you've got to invest your time, love, effort, heart into your team. And if it's your boyfriend or your girlfriend or something else that's taking up all that extra time, you're not going to be a good leader. You know, many women's love languages is time. And if a captain isn't willing to give time, especially the one that's struggling, doesn't have to be your best friend. Second thing I always tell them, Dean, is you got to be willing to stand in the gap between you and your best friend if what your best friend is doing is detrimental to the team. If you're not willing to stand in that gap, everyone's going to know you didn't stand up in that gap because you'll stand up to the one that you have a conflict with. What if it's your roommate? What if it's your best friend? And the third thing I tell our captains before they go out is just so you know, it's lonely. It's lonely because there's many times when you have to have the coaches back, the teams back, the players back, whoever's back it is, and you're standing kind of against the flow of traffic. And if you want to win, sometimes it's lonely to be a captain.

Anson, do you want to add on quick about leadership before we.

Yeah, I'm going to. Yeah, love to. I'll tee off on that. In fact, I love the way Tom began, because here's what's interesting. I'm not one of these guys that thinks you can actually teach leadership. And the irony is, I speak in leadership conferences all over the country. What I tell all of them, you know, just before I cash my paycheck for speaking on leadership, is, you know, I don't think you can teach leadership. So here I am in a leadership, you know, conference teaching leadership, and yet I don't think you can. But I love the way Tommy began, because here's the difference between leadership and a great player. Some people are just great players. It's not that they lead by example. They're just great players. Someone that is a leader is holding teammates accountable verbally. If they're not getting it done, you are hearing this leader's voice. Now, here's the challenge for a leader is you have to select the right voice. And some people don't have the correct voice. And as a result, they don't lead because their teammates think they're just screaming at them. If you want to be a screamer, you can be one of my greatest leaders ever could say anything to anyone on the pitch. And that was Carla Werdon Overbeck. And what did Carla do that allowed her to scream at me at a track defensively? Well, we've just flown from LA to Hong Kong on our way to our train ride to Guangzhou, and we're getting off in, actually, Kowloon, where the airport is right next to the island of Hong Kong. And what's Carla doing? She's grabbing everyone's bag and she's putting on the bus. The bus pulls into the hotel. Everyone's groggy. We've just flown across the Pacific Ocean. Now what is Carla doing? She's grabbing everyone's bags, and everyone just wants to get into the room as fast as possible. And she's helping the equipment manager move the bags into the equipment room. She's helping all the players that are absolutely exhausted move their stuff into their rooms. And all of a sudden, she has won the right in the game to say anything, because here's what all the players know. They know that Carla serves them. Carlos serves them off the field. So on the field, they are going to serve Carla. And Carla could say anything to anyone in any kind of tone, and they wouldn't object at all. They would respond immediately. One of my favorite moments with Carla is she'd be out there in the field, and if a player wasn't doing what she wanted, by the way, she would always ask them first, would you please track or balance, Would you please do this? And if the player didn't do it, all of a sudden in the middle of the game, this would be, Carl, hey, Anson, sub so and so out of here. She's killing us. And all of a sudden, the girl looks over at Carla, and then the girl looks at the bench. And what does she see at the bench? She sees the girl that is playing her position that's about to be subbed in for her. Because there is no way I am ever leaving a player on the field that Carla doesn't want to play with. And so there are all kinds of different ways to lead, but one of the critical elements in leadership is to hold your teammates accountable and to have the. I guess the platform in order to say anything is you have to hold yourself accountable. No one was more, I guess, accountable for herself and her team and her staff than Carla. She was the fittest player in almost every camp I ever coached at a national team level. She was the fittest player at UNC that I coached every single year in my four years at unc. And this is an unbelievable statistic. We never lost a game with Carla on the field. Four years in a row, we never lost a game. And that's why when Tommy and I are talking about leadership and any other one that coaches in the women's game, leadership is one of the rarest and most critical elements in championship teams on the women's side. And it's a wonderful challenge. And I appreciated everything Tommy said.

Well, and I think Tommy will back me when I say, if Carla Overbeck asked us to do anything now, we would do it and not flinch. He's that kind of leader. And then, Tom, to use your word, you talked about having each other's back. It's going to be a segue now to talk about back to pressure drills. As a broadcaster, I always like to highlight players that can hold the ball. How important is playing with back to pressure and creating elite player?

Well, an elite player has to be a complete player, right? And so if you're a sprinter and you're always getting behind everyone and you've got some great, like a Spitzer, someone from the Dutch team that can play you in behind it at any moment, then your opponent is going to back up and they're not going to give you any space in behind. So if that's your game and you've built your entire process for success around that game, all of a sudden you find out pretty quickly, wow, I better be better back to goal. I better be able to solve this pack defense. I need to bring players in around me, lay it off, get it back. But that whole process of back to goal starts with simply being able to control a ball while being bumped and cajoled and harassed and messed with. And so it's a process. You know, you don't just get great back to goal. And you know what's interesting? The younger and more inexperienced players, when you start teaching that technique, they want to out sprint the defender to the ball. Well, by out sprinting the defender to the ball, they're giving up all that ground, that seven, eight yards that they would have been able to lean in and, and establish a higher line. So it's not just about being quick back to the ball. It's about leaning in and being able to balance yourself and hold someone off. But then you got to have your head up to find out what's going on around you. Because most people, when they learn their head goes straight down. So it's a pretty Complicated. Not complicated. More complex, I think skill than people realize. But I can tell you this much. When you're in recruiting or you're looking for a national team player, or you're looking to draft a pro player and a 40 yard ball comes flighted in and she leans back sideways and puts her elbow in somebody's throat and holds it off their other foot and that defender has no chance. You want that player on your team. That's how valuable that skill is.

Moving through chapter 14 with the great Anson Dorrance and the great Tom Stone. And one little note, Anson, you mentioned Christine Lilly not liking to head the ball. Her header against China saved the usa. So I'm glad that you spent some time with her on that because that was the play of the game as they went on to win that 99 World Cup. Definitely. She, like Mia Hamm and Tobin Heath and so many players that have come through your system, Anson, they have artistry and they have deception. How do you develop those characteristics?

Well, we get back to what Tommy was saying earlier and we went into, I think, a really good discussion about it. It's not easy because I think they have to watch the game at the highest level because Tommy's right. I mean, there's so many players out there on the men's side that have the Tobin Rapinoe characteristics of, you know, incredible deception, savvy and sophistication, but there's just not enough on our side. And I think one thing youth coaches should emphasize is maybe there's a quiz at the beginning of your first practice on Monday or Tuesday about the games that happened over the weekend and so make that a part of the conversation so that all of a sudden that's in the water. And honestly, I don't have any great advice for any of the coaches that are out there because I've tried to establish watching the game in my program forever and honestly, it hasn't happened. The only reason it's happened recently is because I had those two Brits on my team. And so, yeah, they're brought up in a culture of watching the game. But if someone has a great idea, please send it in to me because nothing I've tried has succeeded. I'm still working on it, but honestly, this has to be a part of who we are as a culture. But let me share this. I have had some players come in that have had foreign coaches that taught their players to love certain teams and certain games. And as a result, they have a certain sophistication level. And so I guess it's. If you have a part of this in your nature because of the culture where you were raised, maybe that can get your kids excited about watching the game, because, honestly, I haven't done a good enough job of it. But it's a huge problem right now on the women's side, because there's not sort of any sort of corver book you can take. And then all of a sudden, because you've mastered all these moves without an opponent, you can all of a sudden pull one off in a game. No, it's got to be, you know, you watching the game at the highest level, looking at this player that you admire and then taking that move, putting it in your repertoire, because I promise you this, that's exactly what Tobin has done. And that's why whenever she's on the end line and all of us are waiting for the same moment, we're waiting for the Elastico to come out, because you know she's going to try it or the nutmeg or something. And Tobin's the kind of kid, even in a World cup, that'll try to pull that. So, yes, we need more of those kinds of players. And it starts with us figuring out a way to get this game that we all love into the screens of all the kids that we're coaching.

Quick add on Tom.

I just think to talk about Tobin, she's almost bored. If she can run by the player, like that's almost beneath her because she wants to break both ankles. She wants the kid to fall down. And what I love about Tobin's game now, and I don't even know if I'm right about this, this has been my sense. My sense is she might have valued people falling down more when now she has this incredible balance of being this ruthless winner. Absolutely going to slit your throat and win the game. And at the same time, she's going to have a lot of fun with you if you decide to match up with her one on one. But somewhere along the line, a coach said to her, hey, that's fine, Tobin. That little spin move, Meg, didn't work. No problem. Someone allowed her to fail. Someone allowed her. And, you know, I got. I mean, listen, one of the things that Anson's the best, that 1v1 green light, fail, fail, fail, fail, succeed, cross, score, win the game. Six failures, one success. And he's going to celebrate their successes. And, you know, we need more youth coaches to do that. We need more people to realize, I mean, there's one in every city. There should be 50 in every city that really are letting their kids fail, letting them be creative. But to back up Anson's point, where do they see it? Where do they find the creativity? It's not in them. It's not in eight. I mean, for some it is, but it's not cultural here. So we've got to create the culture. Why don't youth teams and college teams practice more against bunker defenses? Well, because most of the teams we play against don't do that. Anson faces a lot more bunker defenses than we do. But, you know, those are the things that can bring it out in a young kid. Like, you can't just. My daughter's too fast right now. Nobody can stop her. She's got to learn to solve problems. So I think it's a great topic. I'd love to pick up on this another time, Anson, because you've had so many great ideas through the years, and to be fair, your program and I think Stanford right now have produced the most creative players collegiately that we've ever seen.

Well, let me throw this out, because I love where Tommy went again. I mean, for us, it's all about 1v1. We encourage it certainly in our games, but also we practice it. Tommy certainly knows this. We've got a bulletin board filled with all of our different competitions. And there are years when we have five different 1v1 competitions. And getting back to what Tommy was talking about earlier, we actually have a Back to goal 1v1. We call it bogeys. Player checks off one post, the other player checks off the other. And now you've got to figure out a way to face this defender. And then we have this immediate back to pressure where you're not checking off a post, you're actually on the girl's back in the penalty box and she's got to spin and finish or spin and find a midfielder to finish. So 1v1 is critical. So even for a coach that doesn't have much of a cultural background in the game, doesn't watch the game, doesn't know the game, let's assume you're out there coaching your kid because the league your kid plays in for the, uh, doesn't have enough coaches. Oh, by the way, you're coaching your kid's team if you want her to actually have a team in this league. And of course the dad is thinking, well, gosh, all I've done all my life is played basketball, football and baseball, and now I've got to coach soccer. Well, believe it or not, one of the best things that coach can do is just say, okay, this is, you know, the beginning of every practice. We're going to have a short 1v1 tournament. And even without knowing a thing about 1v1, just putting them in that environment to try to teach players to beat people off the dribble but stop people off the dribble as well, is going to be a wonderful platform for this sort of thing. We're talking about this sort of deceptive player development. And I think it's all, it's all very positive for us.

Breaking down Chapter 14 vision of a champion With Anson Dorrance and Tom Stone. We've, we covered a lot. We still need to get to goalkeeping. This next question is above my pay grade, but you two are smart enough, I think, to have an answer. And that is, can you talk about the social aspects of soccer that impede a woman's ability to work with the ball on their own?

You want to start, Tommy, or do.

You want me to tee off? I was going to let the master psychologist go first.

Sure.

Honestly, I could spend hours on this. The way we built that team in 91 that won the World cup is we trained every player in that roster to be a self coach. There weren't pro leagues back then. A lot of them were out of college, so they didn't have regular games. So what we designed, we designed a packet where they had a section on ball mastery, obviously a section on 1v1, a section on wall work, all the different things you can do on a wall to improve yourself. So we trained the kids in this. And here were the expectations. When they came into camp, they had to come into camp fit as could be. They had to come into camp having played a lot of 1v1. Because when they arrived at camp, one of two things was going to happen. They got there on a Sunday, the next morning was either going to be a fitness test. And if they didn't pass the fitness test, as they all learned on the first camp I ever ran, we were going to gather that girl failure in the fitness test stuffed together in the practice environment, have the manager in a van drive her back to the motel, she would pack her stuff there. We were driving her to the airport, we were sending her home. We only had to do that once. Other than that, every single girl that came in came in fit. So that was established. But what I would also do, I would say at least two thirds of the time is we would have a 1v1 tournament instead of a fitness test. So here's what the girls do. They Knew that, first of all, they had to be fit as could be and they had to be really good. 1v1. That's the way we built that 1991 team. We built it with 1v1. If you look at the front seven, because we played a basically two marking backs and a sweeper. So we had four in midfield and three up top. So in effect, the front seven, every one of those girls, with one exception her, go to decision. Can I pass this ball or can I dribble past this girl? 1v1. Their first choice for six out of the seven was, I am going to beat you off the dribble. The only girl in that front seven that would rather pass the ball than dribble was Shannon Higgins. Mia wanted to beat you off the dribble. Christine wanted to beat you off the dribble. Karen Jennings. Gabera wanted to beat you off the Archie. Karen Jennings at the time, Michelle Akers wanted to beat you off the dribble. Even Julie Foudy wanted to beat you off the dribble. April Heinrichs wanted to beat you off the dribble. Six out of the seven would rather take you on than pass the ball by you. So that's what I think is critical when you're teaching someone to train themselves. 1v1 wall work, obviously, fitness. And then that could be transformational. The famous Mia Hamm quote that everyone seems to know now. I'm driving through a park. Out of the corner of my eye, I see this kid going 5 and back 10 and back 15 and back. And all of a sudden I said, oh, my gosh, that looks like me. As I pull over, she doesn't even know I'm there watching. And I just can't believe it. I'm so impressed because in between these sprints and she's doing something we call cones, you know, she's hunched over in hot air, shooting from her lungs, sweat's flying off her brow. And I was thinking, o, gosh, second semester of Mia's senior year, it's February, it's cold out. And I'm thinking, this is so impressive. Drove into work, scribbled a note to her, dropped it in the mail, forgot about it. The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching. That's the bottom line. What you do on your own, outside the training environment, outside and away from coaches is the final measure. And athletic greatness. And so that question, what you do on your own is absolutely critical. If you want to have extraordinary success in this game.

Tom, I have no idea how you top that.

Well, Dean, here's what I'm going to go with. You just triggered Anson and you just put him right into full Anson Dorrance mode. And for any of these people out there that think this young man over here in the awful Carolina blue color is slowing down, you just got an idea that he's going to stay at the top of this game forever. And I'll just say it's so fun listening to him talk about. Because I was growing up with all those players like Tracy Bates, Leon and Mia was on my club team. And I mean, I knew all those girls and watching what they did. And it's true, they would come home from camp and I'd be at the drive in with Tracy. And Tracy's like, tom, I gotta go. I gotta go do fitness tomorrow morning before my game. Like, what are you doing that for? She's like, oh, my gosh. National team practices are brutal. So Anson's way of answering your question, Dean, and cutting completely through any socialization limitations that you were alluding to, he just cut right through them. Because here's our team culture, here's what we're going to do, here's our standard. And I don't really care if that means you have to train by yourself or with someone else. Get it done. So this is the structure that he built that carries on, you know, on our look. He still.

That Ansonism is still in our program. It's still in our national team. Some still carry a tradition. And I think the thing that we always say to our players here is in college you have elite players who do not need anyone to train with. They've asked all the questions, they've watched the video. They are in national team camp, so they're fearful of what they'll be if they don't, you know, put up or shut up. Then you have very good college players who need a friend to train with. They don't find a friend. They're not going out to train. And then you have average college players that just wait for practice and they're all stuck in those three categories. But the very good ones can become elite if they can find a way to be intrinsically motivated, that they don't need anybody or anything. And we've all got these world class facilities now. So, I mean, you've seen what they built at Carolina. You should see what we have here. There's no reason a kid can't go out, get a bag of balls, have a Wall to shoot off, music playing. Heck, we can push a button and a dome goes over our stadium and covers them up from the rain. I mean, we got a retractable roof. Okay, I'm making that up. But they've got everything now, so there's no reason for these kids not to move from that very good level of commitment to that elite level and see where their game goes. There's nothing like walking off the field as a former player, knowing I just put the work in and nobody was here, just me. There's just something so fulfilling about that and more girls than not now, I think Anson, are getting that. But you had it back in the 90s when nobody had it.

You're absolutely right. And that's why I'm excited about where the us is, but also where we're going now. Dean, you've got to give me permission to tell my favorite Tommy Stone story. And then we'll trade back and forth until we've completely run out of time. So we're playing Duke.

This is his version, by the way. This is his version.

He's allowed to correct it when. When I'm finished. We're playing Duke. We're at Duke. Duke has a corner kick. There are not that many minutes left in this game. And all of a sudden, Duke is serving the corner. Tommy is running across our penalty box, and he dives like he is shot by a sniper. And so all of a sudden, the referee points to the spot, and of course, the game's over. They're going to score the penalty kick. And I'm thinking, he took a dive. I can't believe this. So I go sprinting out there in the field, and while I'm running out and sprinting, I'm trying to take my jacket off. But then, of course, while I'm running and I've taken my jacket off, I don't know what to do with my jacket. I don't want to just leave it behind because I'm now actually on the field. I'm running at the referee, and I'm sort of swimming with my jacket. And I came right up to the referee and right at his feet. I threw my jacket down in his feet. I said, he took a frigging dive, and I said, check with your linesman. So he goes over there, he checks with his linesman, and sure enough, the linesman agreed that Tommy took a dive in our penalty box. And so this is fantastic, because of course I was going to get red carded for running out into the field, attacking the referee, and all of a sudden.

I didn't get a card. Tommy, I think, was yellow carded for diving. They took the penalty kickback. And did we win in overtime or something?

You sure did. Yes.

Is that wonderful? We're over at Duke, and, you know, Rennie had great teams. Tommy was a great player. But one of my favorite moments, because, of course, this kid blew us off, right? So he blew us off. He's a Duke. He blew us off. So for me, that was one of the most wonderful moments of my men's coaching life.

Well, the only thing I would add to that story, because it actually is pretty accurate, except Anson failed to mention that the AR on the other side that said I took a dive was like his groundskeeper. And, like, you know, he worked for Anson's camp program. I mean, he had him in his back pocket. So that is a true story. Thank goodness I hit some winning goals to beat Carolina, or I would never have lived that moment down. But that's all true. Anson got a penalty kick taken back, a red card taken back, and the guy that would have been kicked out for punching me actually is the guy who scored the winning goal. Like, the story is unbelievable. And he didn't even get thrown out. So that was one of my favorites. I will say my other favorite, which doesn't have a lot to do with soccer, but just speaks to Anson in the best possible way. You know, all the elites are just so competitive. It's overwhelming. Right? And you won't run into someone more competitive, yet more compassionate and a classier guy when he. When he doesn't win than Anson. So it's what makes everyone, you know, they can't stand him because when he loses, he tells everybody how great the other team was. And he's super humble, and everybody just can't figure that out because, well, I guess when you got 22 national championships, you could be that gracious, but that truly is who he is. But while you're in the moment with the guy, you're about to get crushed like a grape. So this is one of those moments. I've got Anson in town at Top Hat to work my college prep camp, and I've got Kelli o' Hara in the camp, and Anson, by golly, is coming down to work this camp and possibly, you know, get Kelli o' Hara to come to Carolina. So that's. That was the lure. I had her in camp, so he came. Now I've got the big fish at my camp. You know, he's Anson and all the Top Hat kids are there. And it's this gorgeous setting. And there was some other really top college coaches there. And it's pouring down rain. We have to run into the clubhouse. I'm wondering when Anson's going to remember this story. So we run into the clubhouse, it's pouring down rain. And Todd Schulenberger is the director of coaching of Topout at the time, which, ironically, Anson faced in the national championship semifinals this past year. And we start. I said, anybody want to play ping pong? And Anson goes, yeah, I'll play ping pong. And I'm thinking to myself, this is my chance. I'm really good at ping pong. I am going to beat Anson's butt at ping pong with everyone watching, because there's like 30, 40 people in this room. He goes, I was a boarding school kid, I played ping pong. I'm like, whatever. So we hit the ball around a little bit, and I'm thinking, immediately, my gosh, this guy good. So I'm kind of hitting it around, trying to figure out what, you know, his weakness might be so I can hit it to him. Well, he doesn't have any weaknesses, and all he does is play stinking defense. Here's the torture of playing Anson Dorritson ping pong. You will not ever beat him, and you will only beat yourself. He doesn't beat you. He watches you ride in misery while you beat yourself. Because he just plays defense. So 7 to 0 is a skunk. And I win one point at 6 to 1 answers. And I've never seen anybody like this. He's like a. Like a Carolina ninja. He's playing with two paddles and they're in both hands, and he blocks and I'm smashing and he's blocking it. Okay, so we're getting down to it. And 11 to 1 is a skunk, and it's 10 to 1. And I'm thinking, this is my last resort. I'm about to get skunked in front of all my friends. And I talked smack that I was going to win. So I decide I'm going to get in his head. I'm going to get in Hanson's head. So I said to him, anson, you built your entire reputation, your whole image, everything that's come for you on this dramatic dynamic, attacking soccer. And when you come in play ping pong, all you do is play defense. What the heck? Because I'm trying to get him to play offensively, right, So I have a chance. And he looks at me and he said, tommy, I'm going To have to correct you on something. I didn't build my reputation on attacking soccer. I built my reputation on freaking winning. And he aces me for the skunk. Game over. Yeah, I didn't build my reputation on attacking. I built it on freaking winning. And he aces me for the skunk and every college coach, and my tail is so far tucked, I went to the corner and sucked my thumb for, like, a half an hour. It was absolutely brutal.

You're not going to beat Anson in pickleball, you're not going to beat him in roller hockey, and you're not even going to beat him in soccer. With no acl, the guy is indeed a winner. All right, before we sign off, as our time is up, I do want to just role play a little bit to go back to the fact that I have propped you up as the best analyst. So, Tom, are you ready for this? You're in the booth. You ready?

Okay.

All right. Welcome to RFK Stadium. It's the Colorado Rapids and D.C. united in the MLS Cup. Gone is Bobby Houghton, in as Marcus Hahnemann, in as Peter Vermese. Along with Steve Trichu, they've moved Marcelo Balboa up. And the biggest difference, Tom Stone, has been Mooch Meyernick. How did he take this team from worse to almost first?

You know, here's the thing. If you know Mooch, you know, he's just a character, and the guys love him. They'll follow him off a cliff. He gave him enthusiasm, gave him a tactical plan they could handle, and he's just the kind of guy you want to play for. He didn't have much time to make these moves, but in the time he was allotted, they've bought into his system. They've gotten themselves all the way to this. This championship opportunity. And listen, this is just a player's coach. And the Mavs, the Rapids, did the right thing bringing Mooch on top of this team.

There's Tom Stone, Anson Dorrance. He's a perfect guest for a vision of a champion. Tell me you agree with that.

I absolutely agree. And I just really like Tommy. And he's right. We connect all the time. We connect certainly when Duke's playing Carolina in basketball. And if Duke beats us to death, I'll always send Tommy a note and congratulate Duke on their victory if we win. He's also so wonderfully gracious and what he sends back. And I'll tell you, the older you get, and I'm certainly getting to becoming very old, it's the people that you can stay connected with in this game that make your life so incredibly rich. And even if it's a kid from Dallas that could have made a huge difference in your program that blows you off and goes to your rival. Are you freaking kidding me? Yeah, if he blew us off, yeah, go play for, you know, USC or, you know, ucla. Don't come to Durham and play for Duke. But I always respected him as a player. I learned to admire him as a coach and now we're best friends as, as, as men. And I just really appreciate everything about him and he's played and coached with people that I know and have great respect for. Tony DeCicco brought him onto his staff. So U20 world champion. I mean, so Tony knew of Tommy's value and so do I. And I really appreciate having someone that I lost still stay connected with me because he and I have become great friends over the years and I cherish my relationship with him.

So. Well said, Anson Dorrance. Appreciate that Extra story for Anson and the great Tom Stone. I'm Dean Linke. Thanks for listening to the Vision of a Champion Podcast.

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