Vision of a Champion with Anson Dorrance Trailer

Obviously getting recruited to go to unc, you know, you think you're a good player and then you get to college and you're like, actually, I'm not as good as I thought I was. And I think it was really eye opening to step into a program that encouraged competition.

I needed to be competitive. I wanted to win every. The day that I turned up to Carolina was the day that I realized that actually it was okay to be like that. And that was normal. I remember having to do a 1v1 drill against Tobin Heath and I was this little 17 year old coming in. I kept it to 1 1. I was thinking, yeah, I'm doing good. And then she just absolutely killed me. Like 102 or something crazy. That always instills in my head that I got beat 102 on this 1v1 game. I still think about it now.

So I feel like creating these competitive moments that felt like such insane pressure, like where it's just like a simple one on one game that nobody's really ever going to see and it's in practice or whatever. But creating this like moment that feels like just so extreme in a practice environment will prepare you for any moment.

All of us know that it's not the training environment alone that's going to take you to the promised land, it's what you do outside it. And so almost every elite player I've coached, it's the stuff she's done outside of practice, in addition to obviously the challenges in the training environment that have given her ball mastery. It's love of the ball, it's love of the game. And for me, like the quote, the Mia Hamm quote, it's what you do on your own outside of practice that the truly great ones separate themselves with.

The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is watching. On the Vision of a Champion podcast, 22 time National Champion and 8 time Coach of the year, Anson Dorrance, along with co hosts Dean Linke and Natalie Boddy, talk about what it means to be a champion with elite athletes and coaches who have been a part of Anson's hall of Fame journey. Tobin Heath, Roy Williams, Lucy Brauns, Crystal Dunn, April Heinrichs and more are in the upcoming season and you don't want to miss it. Subscribe now and we'll see you soon with the first episode with women's soccer legend Mia Hammer.

Sam.