Susan Ellis: Chapter 9 - High School Soccer

High school has so many different aspects than certainly a club has. And it's mainly, I think, you know, we're building character, we're building work ethic, we're building passion. You know, I went and watched my kids be in dance recitals. I watched them singing musicals, I watched them do all these different things that I just know what makes these kids tick. And it's really important.

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 again, everyone, and welcome to 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. And that, by the way, includes the original Carolina Courage that was part of the WUSA way back in the early 2000s. I say that because it will indeed be relevant today. For today's episode, we'll be going over chapter nine, which is all about high school soccer. We are briefly taking a step away from the bright lights of UNC and professional soccer, even the US National Team, and instead focusing on the tough decision almost every young, talented soccer player must make right now. The debate between playing at high school versus club soccer has been ongoing since the creation of these club leagues. The Vision of a Champion speaks on this debate in length and gives the pros and cons of each option. If you know any young athlete struggling to make this decision, I implore you to have them read this chapter. Because the greatest college sport coach of all time, that's men or women, Anson Dorrance provides a lot of great advice on this specific topic. Now, this podcast will also serve as a great resource because Anson and and Susan Ellis will be breaking down this debate and provide their updated takes on the choice of high school versus club. As I mentioned, our guest for today, Susan Ellis, played at UNC from 1980-84, winning the first four of UNC's national championships. Out of college, she became the head coach for women's soccer and tennis at Ursuline Catholic High School in Dallas. There she won 4 14, count them, 14 state titles in soccer and a title in tennis. She skipped over the college level and moved straight to the coaching staff of. Remember, I mentioned the Carolina Courage of the wsa. That's where I spent the most time with her. And Susan won a championship in her second year with the team. Now, after the league folded in 2003, Susanella stayed in North Carolina. We're glad she did. And became the head coach of of the women's soccer and tennis team at Durham Academy. And she has an incredible record to date. She joined Anson and many other soccer greats when she was inducted into the North Carolina Soccer hall of Fame in the most recent class of 2019. With that as the setup, we welcome Susan Ellis and Anson Dorrance. Welcome, Susan. Welcome, Anson.

Thanks, Dean.

All right, well, let's go to work and break down this important chapter of Vision of a Champion as we talk about high school soccer. And Anson, we'll start with you. Based on the content of this chapter, it is clear that the controversial debate over high school versus club soccer was prominent when you were writing the book in the early 2000s. I didn't even realize that. Coach, how has the dynamic changed between club and high school soccer over the past two decades? Anson?

Well, obviously, the most interesting thing to talk about is the collision between the DA and high school soccer. And for years, I thought that Christian Lavers and the rest of the ECNL leadership were doing a great job with youth development in this country. And then for some reason, because I think of some of the successes on the men's side of the DA at a youth level, they decided to jump in on the women's side. And I absolutely hated this collision between the DA leadership in US soccer and the ecnl, but also high school soccer. And I felt very protective of Christian Labors the ECNL but also the high school game. And honestly, a lot of that had to do with my huge respect and affection for Susan. But also, I'm one of these guys that I just love sports. I was brought up on every sport under the sun. I mean, one of my favorite stories is the story of my first dynasty, which wasn't the UNC women's team. It was the intramural dynasty at Teague Dorm, the at the University of North Carolina. So I can't believe that I would ever tell these people, no, you can only, you know, play one sport your whole life, and you got to play with one team, your club team. So everything about this DA coming in and invading what I thought was an already very successful youth development platform was something I fought constantly, and I fought it publicly. And Dean, you know this, and Susan knows this. And I was a very outspoken critic of the DA telling these kids they should not play high school soccer. And it wasn't that their reasoning was wrong. It wasn't. They were saying, you know, this is going to absolutely destroy your evolution as an elite player. But in all honesty, the club game is probably a higher level game in general. And obviously the higher level game is going to develop you a lot faster. And so the rationale these people had for the DA was not bad rationale, but I think they lost a lot of the other pieces that were critical, the pieces about the value of high school soccer, because there are all sorts of different values. I remember when I was a player at unc, a friend of mine by the name of Kip Ward had started this recreational league in Chapel Hill called the Rainbow Soccer League. And he recruited all of us that played with him on the UNC men's varsity to serve as his coaches for this league. And I had no issue with jumping in to coach elementary school teams and middle school teams, high school teams, but also I coached and played on the senior team on the Rainbow Club, where I coached all four teams. And honestly, every single level I coached, I would jump into scrimmage with these kids. And I genuinely feel that my career at North Carolina, as a member of the North Carolina varsity, I benefited from jumping into scrimmages with my elementary school kids, my middle school kids, my high school kids, and obviously these rec players in Chapel Hill, because I could absolutely do anything I wanted with the ball. So when I'm there with my elementary school kids, what am I doing? Most of the time I'm trying to nutmeg every one of them, and they're all piling up on me and, you know, kicking me to death. And I'm having the time of my life, and so are they. So what I want to emphasize is that you can learn something by being the dominant player in a high school environment as an elite club player. So I don't dismiss the prospect of developing in high school because your responsibilities are different. So let me turn it over to Susan, because I would rather have this, in her words, for the way she sees her game, because I saw huge value in it, also from a player development perspective. So, Susan, why don't you take this away? Because obviously you're at ground zero on this, right?

You know, I coached in Texas, you know, for a long time, 16 years. And that, you know, that's a huge hotbed of club soccer. Some of the best club teams in the country were coming out of Dallas, Texas. But the changes is they used to allow them, you know, to play high school soccer and then, you know, and then because of the developmental academy and certainly I watched games there. The level is very high, but, you know, not allowing the kids to play. I had a Molly Pathman, you know, who was, you know, made it to a very high level. And, you know, she played since eighth grade on her high school team and I hope I had a little bit in developing her as an eighth grader. She liked to pass it off, you know, to people when she's right in front of the goal and go, molly, you don't need to pass that ball. Shoot it. You know. And she became our leading goal scorer at Durham Academy. And hopefully because of my encouragement in her high school environment, that she didn't need to genuflect to, you know, the upperclassmen. She needed to. When she's in front of that goal, she needs to shoot it. It's just like Anson said. I remember one time at a soccer camp situation, I was a freshman in college. Anson always liked the current players to, you know, this is back in 1980, wanted the current players to jump in and play with the campers. And then he came up to me and he said, susan, when you get it, don't pass. Just try to dribble through everyone. Well, you know, I just started playing soccer. I wasn't very good at dribbling through the whole team, but by the end of the summer I could figure out a way to dribble through a whole team and, you know, and again, that was just me taking my little soccer camp campers on my back and again developing myself as a player. And, you know, and that's like a Molly Pathman, you know, when she played on the women's, on the national team that won the World cup, the Uniting World cup, she was a role player for me. She was my go to player. And the pressure of that, you know, she could have never developed her into a better player that that she is today. And I think it helped her at Duke, you know, to be that go to player. And I demanded it, you know, just with the small conversation of don't be passing that ball when you are right in front of the goal just for the process of passing it and, you know, no one getting mad at you. There's a lot of really cool things about high school soccer, but, you know, a lot of people say, you know, the recruiting, you know, the recruiting path is all through the club system and, and you know, and again, that's true. And a lot of people believe in that. But, you know, I have a lot of impact too. I have a lot of people out there that I can talk to. I know the kids 360 view. I know how they are to adults. I know how their work ethic in a school environment. I also know that they come to practice even when they're tired and they work really hard. I know when they are not very hard working, you know, I see the 360 view of these kids. And if that's not good and no one wants to know those views, then, you know, then so be it. But, you know, high school has so many different aspects than certainly a club has. And it's mainly, I think, you know, we're building character where we're building work ethic, we're building passion. You know, I went and watched my kids being dance recitals. I watched them singing musicals. I watched them do all these different things that I just know what makes these kids tick. And it's really important to me. And again, you know, I grew up in high school and I every season I played a sport and if someone told me, I, I, you know, my passion was basketball. I thought I was going to be an amazing basketball player, but I was 52 and a fairly good shooter, but not great, but I was really good at defending. But if someone came to me and said, you can't play basketball because you have to quit basketball to do just soccer only, I don't think I could have done that back in the day.

Well, there's a lot of merit to what she's talking about, Anson, particularly the camaraderie that's involved being with your high school friends and that experience and trying to win state championships or conference titles. One of the arguments is if you play high school soccer, you won't get recruited by an Anson Dorrance type. I think you've said, if you could make it work, why not do both, right? Play youth and play high school.

Well, there's no question. Go ahead, Susan.

I mean, and it is hard. You know, there were days, you know, where, I mean, Molly, for example, or even my kids at Ursuline Academy. There were days they would go from my practice and, you know, we would work really hard because my standards were fairly high. And then they would go to their club practice and work really hard too. But that grit and that hardness and that just added to their character building, you know, and they still talk about it today. They would run 120s at my practice and then go have to run a mile for, you know, for the Sting and then come home and then have to do their homework. You know, it really taught them how to be self disciplined, how to get their schoolwork done before all those practices happen. And again, they loved it. They loved playing for me. They loved playing for their clubs, and they made it work because they loved it.

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Yeah, so what the other thing I like, Dean, and I appreciate you throwing that question in my direction, is one of the things I've also really been critical of when I've looked at some of the stuff we've done at a national level is we have all these different theories on what's going to help us most. So then they started having, you know, age group competitions. So, you know, the U14s would all play each other, the U15s, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the debate that all of us would have that are very interested in player development is to let the kids basically play up. And so all of us have been trying to sell these kids on playing up. Well, what is better for a Molly Pathman than as an 8th grader to be competing against seniors in high school? Because obviously she's gonna have to navigate this because those seniors are a little bit bigger and a lot of times, and maybe not in her case faster, but generally faster, more experienced. And all of a sudden she's got the challenge of navigating. These seniors as an eighth grader and then as a ninth grader and then as a sophomore. And so for me, the high school game offered all kinds of wonderful player development opportunities. And then you alluded to it in one of your questions, Dean, about the social aspect of it. One of the things about the clubs is no one really knows in your high school that you are this great club player. I mean, there's no really advertisement within the high school environment about how your club team has just won the state championship. But when you guys win it as a high school team and you're walking through the state tournament, everyone in the high school knows and they're so excited for you and they support you fully. And all of a sudden you've got a unique sort of prestige within your own culture, which I think is also lost on these people that seem to think that, you know, we should just pull these kids out just for this one aspect of player development. That for me, again, I can make a case for both. And so I, you know, I love everything about the high school game, but the thing I love most about it, I guess, is, is let's make sure our kids love sports. And there are all sorts of cases. Right now I just finished a book called Range that's talking about, you know, how the specialists now aren't the ones that we should look at in terms of impacting and changing our culture. The generalists are the ones that are coming to the fore and they talked about the different aspects of a Federer and a Tiger Woods. Obviously, Tiger woods being the specialist. Federer played all these different sports before he decided to concentrate on tennis. And I think right now the highest paid athlete in the world is Federer. I mean, he makes more money than anyone else. And I'm including Messi, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo and everyone else. And why? Because he loves sports. And so the cross training aspect, pouring ourselves into whatever sport we're playing and you know, one of my favorite events in the spring, Dean, it's intramural basketball. Our kids split up into two or three teams. They jump into the intramural basketball. I can't wait to watch them play intramural basketball. And for all the right reasons. I mean, half of them can't play. And for me that's hilarious how this great soccer player doesn't know anything about basketball, but then they press for the entire time they're out there. They make it tough for the other team. And obviously in general, they sweep almost every team they play. But I want my kids to love everything about sports. A part of that has to be generated, in my opinion, from the high school environment where, yeah, play on every team. Heather O'Reilly did. She's one of the most capped players of all time for the United States. Almost all the players at the highest level in our country played multiple sports growing up. And I think that's what I would love for our kids to do is just love the sports they play and, yeah, eventually specialize. But you know what? When you're young, play them all. Enjoy yourself. I mean, and let's not, you know, make all these ridiculous rules pulling them out of the high school game. No, let them have fun.

And I will say, as a broadcaster, the high school state championships will draw more people and more fervor than, for instance, Duke, N.C. a women's basketball game, a high school state championship game. The excitement around it is incredible. You see it all the time, right, Susan?

I do. And, you know, to. To talk about what Anson was talking. We had this kid at our school, she just graduated, Lauren Gross Handler. And she was amazing volleyball player. All the club coaches were going, what club does she play on? And, you know, her high school coach says, oh, she doesn't play on the club because she wants to play high school soccer. She also swam. She was amazing swimmer. And then she was at her freshman year. She played in my back her junior and it would have been her senior year this year. She played up top and she was my leading goal scorer. So. And our mom used to say she used to struggle because she was a very good soccer player. And a lot of her peers that she had grown up with doing club soccer with had gone on specialized, only played soccer, and she still sort of struggled with. Did she really make the right decision? Well, then our school honored her this year as our female Athlete of the Year, mainly because of her commitment to three sports. And she just finally, I think she figured out that maybe she made the right decision and she could have. I mean, I don't know if she could have played in the developmental academies, but certainly she could have been on a high level ECNL team. But she wanted to play volleyball for our high school. She wanted to swim. She just wanted to be, you know, a student. And at first she was headed to the University of Texas, but now I think she's changed her decision and she's going to be a Tar Heel, which also makes me excited. And she certainly will jump into hopefully on the club team and she'll be amazing piece of that team because she's also, you know, she's quiet but amazing teammate and you know, I teach these kids. I see them, some of them come to my camp when they're in the second grade, you know, so I watch them grow from second graders all the way to when they're seniors in high school. And it's just really fun to see the development and their character and their leadership and just, you know, kind of how they grow from, you know, middle school. Sometimes they aren't so nice, and then they turn into these beautiful young ladies with principal and character. And it's just fun to watch that growth from elementary school to high school.

Well, that's a good segue to the next question, I think. Anson, it's also amazing that you address this issue when you wrote this book, because as I went through the chapter, I noticed that Jordan Walker, who played under Anson and you, Susan, she has an excerpt in this chapter where she says that one intangible benefit for playing high school soccer is the real world skills many players develop that they would not normally develop in many other team settings. Anson, you touched on it already. Susan, how do you think high school soccer can help younger adults, male or female, develop these unique skills that would support them in their careers off the field?

Well, you know, and I'm sure in lots of different teams, we have not very many rules, but we have these things, and it's the new sort of education lingo, transfer goals. What do we want kids to what when they come out of our program? What do we want them to be able to do after they get out of high school? And if you come to my practice, we're competing every day, we're going after it. You know, we're dealing with adversity, and adversity might just be what you had throughout the day. You're learning to lead. You're learning to lead different types of people, different ages of people. You know, they're playing for all the right reasons, and you create a passion for anything that you do. So those are all, all. I mean, it's a balanced life. They're just figuring out how to balance their life. And certainly if you've ever seen a practice or a session that I've done, we work really hard. I mean, I know we do 120s, and they all sort of bond together through that misery. And I, you know, I get it because I had that misery as a college athlete. But they also have lots of fun. There's not one day that they are going to come to my practice where we aren't going to laugh, we aren't going to giggle, we aren't going to be joyful. We aren't going to have a lot of fun. Anson talks about, and I think it was my class that we used to just jog around and talk and stretch and, you know, again, a useless warm up. But then Anson got this guy in and he's making us do all these amazing things, which was a great warmup. But then he was saying that our spirit started going down and it was because. And the only thing he had cut out was our jog around the field. I have that the first 15 minutes of practice is useless other than us just connecting, enjoying each other, talking about what's happening at school with our boyfriends, with our girlfriends, you know, just whatever brings us joy, we talk about. And so, you know, those are all life skills that we're all learning through high school sport. Not just soccer, just any high school sport.

It's about building character too. Right, Anson?

Absolutely. And I mean, Susan is a great role model for all the different aspects that I believe in within my own program. She's my superstar coach in my camps, and she certainly lives and drinks our Kool Aid. And I really, really appreciate it. And that's why I would love for one of my kids to play for Susan. That's why when my kids were growing up, in fact, Michelle right now is sheltering here at home. And she reminded me of the fact that when she was going to my soccer camps in the summer, who did I give her as her coach? I picked Susan Ellis. I wanted her to have my best coach for all the right reasons, for, you know, exactly what Susan's saying. I mean, to have someone that's going to mentor her on, you know, living a principle centered life, who's going to not, you know, cut her any slack if she's not doing well in practice for all the right reasons. I think I would love for Susan to coach all of my kids just because she's going to teach them something and I like it. She's using these educational words now, transfer values, which is the stuff you learn that you can take with you when you leave Susan. Very cool. And it's so wonderful that Michelle and I were just chatting about that last week about. Don't you remember, dad? You always put me on Susan's teams. And I said, you know, honey, I just forgotten about that. But you're so right. And there was a method to my madness. I wanted you to be with someone who I think is extraordinary, that can teach you some positive things. And not just about the game, but about these transfer virtues that I would love for you to take with you post camp. So if I haven't thanked you recently, Susan, thank you.

Both Natalie and Michelle were fun to have on my teams.

That was so well said by both of you. I'm glad you shared that story. Anson, as we dig into this chapter, there's also a great section, Anson and Susan, about the role of a reserve player. Anson, you explained that coming off the bench during the most crucial points of the game is a noble role. That should not be something a player is ashamed of. That being said, obviously it's every player's goal to be the best at their position and start every game. We've all been there, right? What would be some advice you would give a player who is a good bench player but needs to make that jump to be on the field for the starting whistle? Anson, I'll let you go first and.

Then Susan yeah, I mean, I talk about this all the time. In fact, last week I had an opportunity to speak with this group of aggressive traders, the companies called jump Trading. So I was showing this group how we measure performance. And obviously the competitive cauldron is something we've been selling for years about how to take a kid to her psychological potential by having her compete in 28 different categories. But some of the aspects of our program are overlooked along the lines of the question you're asking because we believe in substitution. And the reason we believe in substitution is because we press. And obviously there's not a player on my roster that doesn't want to start and play 90 minutes. But here is what goes through my mind when I'm making a substitution decision. I want to try to substitute at this demarcation line between the superior player fatigued and the inferior player fresh. There comes a point when I'm asking a kid to kill herself defensively the entire time, but also kill herself offensively. The cliche we use is play the game at a sprint, burn yourself out like a comet. And we want the kids to work incredibly hard the entire time and not to worry about it. Don't worry about saving yourself or trying to figure out a way to last for 90 minutes. Just burn yourself out. And when you're fatigued, I'm going to put someone else in. So there's a competition even in the game between the starter and the reserve. And the reserve knows this and the starter knows this. And so what the reserve has to do in her five to 10 to 15 minutes a half, she has to prove that she's doing Better than the 30 minutes a half the starter is getting. And if the reserve does prove that, then we start to shift the substitution line. And there are some players in the team that literally play 22 minutes a half because their substitute is basically equal to them. And then the question as to who starts is based on your most recent performance. And so, yes, there is a nobility and there is a competition and the starter is going to be basically effective based on the pressure the reserve puts on her. Because I use this Bobby Knight cliche on a regular basis when I talk about this. There's no better coach than the bench. Every kid wants to play, every kid wants to start, every kid that starts wants to play maximum minutes. And so, yeah, if you want to play 90 minutes, then holy cow, is the standard for you going to be absolutely off the charts? Because then not only are you sprinting the whole time offensively, which most players do like to do by the way, but you're also sprinting yourself to death defensively. And if you're fit enough, like a lot of Wubin Moy whose beep score is over 50, or basically an Emily Fox who also lives in the post, you know, 50 beep test zone, then yeah, you're basically a 90 minute player. But if you're below 50 in the beep, trust me, I'm dragging your rear end out of the game because the way I want to play it, there's no way you can sprint for 90 minutes unless you're clearing 50 in the beep. 50 in the beep is a US Olympic and full team starter level in that aerobic capacity. Now can everyone get there?

Yes.

What does it require? Unbelievable commitment to your fitness to get to the highest possible level. So yes, there is a nobility on my roster to be a reserve because you are making sure that starter isn't taking her foot off the gas because she takes it off for a minute, you're going to steal that minute from her. And so our competition is not just in practice, it's in the game as well. And who provides the competition in the game? The reserve player that's fighting for more time.

You know, the high school is a little bit different. Not everyone on our roster, you know, has that sort of talent. So you got to figure out what your role is like. You know, I, I had a kid on my team this year. She played high school sports for all the right reasons and she played it for four years in a row and she got very little, if any significant playing time. You know, she got in when we were winning by a lot and certainly appreciated it. She came to every practice, but her role on our team was just to be. I mean, she was funny. She helped the reserves on the bench be cheerful and upbeat, and anyone that started to go against that mission, I could see her down there letting them have it. You know, I could see her helping the kids that. Especially when they're freshmen, if they didn't get a lot of minutes, she would just tell them to keep working, keep, you know, getting better. And Ms. Ellis is fair. You know, she'll give you a chance. You know, I had this kid at Ursuline. Her, you know, her name was Mary Patian, and I taught her from kindergarten until eighth grade. And I just knew that she was going to be amazing soccer player for me because she played club. I mean, she played when she was little. She was very athletic. Well, then when she got into middle school, soccer became not so important to her. And so she sort of. She quit club. And then she tried out for my high school team, and she didn't make it her freshman year. And I was heartbroken because I really liked Mary and I wanted her to be a part of my team, but she just wasn't good enough. And at Ursuline, my teams were really good. So you just couldn't be average. You had to be really good. So then she made the JV team as a 10th grader, and again, she got it. She wasn't very fit. She hadn't committed herself to the fitness level that we. That we had. But she came back as a 10th grader and she was a little bit fitter, but, you know, she made it and played very little minutes. Well, then her senior year, again, she played zero significant minutes as a starter, but she scored her only goal of her career. And at the end of the game, she was like dog piled like we had won the Olympic gold medal. And everyone was thinking, I'm sure, why are you. Why are they celebrating a really sort of insignificant goal? But what we were celebrating about her was her perseverance, her kindness, her work ethic. You know, I had kids on my team, like a Jordan Walker who played at the University of North Carolina, and my kids voted Mary Padian as the MVP of our team only because of. Of that and because of her character. And if that's not. If that doesn't signify a role player or the significance that a role player can have on your team, I don't know what. She could have easily quit. She could have easily, you know, gone against her moral values and, you know, blamed everyone and her brother. Why she didn't make the team, you know, but she was loyal to me. She loved me. And I'm sure it was because of my connection, because I had taught her as a little kid. And she was also mature. She got it. She had to commit to the fitness part. And she also had to play a little soccer. You know, she had sort of quit all together soccer. But I will always remember that story about Mary. And it's a perfect example of how role players or reserves, you know, especially in a high school environment, doesn't necessarily need to play minutes to be impactful on the team as a whole.

Real life tells the real stories. And finally, Anson, as we sign off, you know, when you roll into Chapel Hill, you definitely think about the name Dorrance. You think about the name Smith, Jordan Hamm. Make no mistake, the Dr. Ellis name is pretty prominent in Chapel Hill.

There is absolutely no question, in fact, if you had attended my camps in the last 40 years, you came away from that camp with a huge affection for Susan Ellis. And honestly, you know, I think a lot of the campers probably still don't know who I am, but I think every single camper that came to my camp is in love with Susan Ellis. Her joy of life, her basically making everything fun. And yet when she's actually running the session herself, her demand that you learn something in the session but also improve in your game is a part of what I think makes our camps at the University of North Carolina extraordinary. So I appreciate this public forum to let Susan know how much I appreciate how much he's done to make our camps incredibly special. Because if I left tomorrow, the camp wouldn't suffer at all, but if Susan left, it would just collapse. And that is an absolutely true statement. So, Susan, thank you for the way you live your life and the enthusiasm you have for our game and these kids that come and compete in our camps every summer.

Thanks, ants.

Yeah, I second that for sure. Susan Ellis and the Ellis family. Second to none, of course. Susan, former UNC player and current head coach of the women's soccer program at Durham Academy. If you like this show, one way you can support our work is to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review as well. This show was edited and produced by Creative Allies. If you're looking for information on full service podcast production, head on over to creative allies.com for Susan and Anson. I'm Dean Linke and we'll see you next time on the Vision of a Champion podcast.

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