GoHeels Exclusive: Closing Room Impresses

by Pat James

CHAPEL HILL—Championship rings mean little to Anson Dorrance. Instead, he prefers roses, for they die and provide a reminder of the transient quality of success.

Trophies have also never interested the man who has led the North Carolina women's soccer program to 22 national championships. In the McCaskill Soccer Center, they overflowed from their modest display case and littered the floor. Dorrance even used one as a doorstop.

But during this, the most unusual of seasons, Dorrance has somewhat altered his opinion.

Because of the construction of a new on-campus facility, the Tar Heels relocated to a two-story administrative office on Finley Golf Course Road before the season. Their trophies came too. And in a room on the second floor, they've created a trophy display unlike any in college soccer.

It's called the closing room.

Much of Dorrance's coaching philosophy has derived from what he's learned from other coaches. The same goes for the closing room. Dorrance said he watched every episode of HBO's "UConn Huskies: The March to Madness." The docuseries gave behind-the-scenes access to the UConn women's basketball team over the course of last season.

Dorrance became enamored by how UConn coach Geno Auriemma organized his 11 national championship trophies, lined up on a shelf beside a few windows. From there, Dorrance said Auriemma can peer over them and into the practice gym.

"As I was looking at his trophies," Dorrance said, "I was like, 'Yeah, I've got more than he does. Maybe I should line them up the way he does.'"

So, Dorrance explained the concept to Tom Sander, the director of women's soccer operations. Sander then designed the room. He also built the wooden shelves that wrap around it, flaunting UNC's 28 national championship and semifinals trophies in chronological order.

From 1981-2003, a 23-season span, there's no interruption.

The room doesn't even possess the Tar Heels' 21 ACC Championship trophies; there's simply not enough space. Twenty sit inside a trophy case downstairs. The whereabouts of the most recent one, claimed with Sunday's 1-0 victory over Duke, were unknown to Dorrance when asked Tuesday morning. With some help from Sander and assistant coach Chris Ducar, Dorrance discovered it on assistant director of operations Corey Emerick's desk.

The trophies initially seize one's attention. But they alone don't capture the breadth of the program's history nor the room's splendor.

Along the right wall hang six Sports Illustrated covers. Each features a picture of Lori Chalupny, Whitney Engen, Ashlyn Harris, Tobin Heath, Meghan Klingenberg and Heather O'Reilly – the six former UNC players on the 2015 FIFA World Cup-winning U.S. women's national team. As Dorrance noted, no other school had more than two on the 23-player roster.

"(If) you look at the history, this wasn't an aberration," he said. "You look at how many of our kids have been world champions in the past, and it's staggering. So, (recruits) look at the history, but they also look at what's current."

Neither can be ignored as you move toward the back of the room. A picture of those six Tar Heels with the 2015 World Cup trophy drapes the right wall, adjacent to an image of the six on the 2004 Olympic gold medal-winning team, including Mia Hamm.

Few soccer players boast a resume like Hamm's. Michelle Akers, who led the U.S. to victories in the 1991 and 1999 World Cups, is one of them.

Although Akers attended Central Florida, Dorrance coached her on the national team from 1986-94. A framed jersey that she signed and presented to him resides in the room. On it, she wrote, "Thanks, Anson, for setting the standard for greatness."

"Every now and again, you'll recruit a player who wants to become the best player in the world," Dorrance said. "And if they have that kind of ambition, all of a sudden, in that room, we have a wonderful gift from a player a lot of people consider the greatest player of all time in Michelle Akers.

"For her to write that quote at the top of it is powerful recruiting for us."

But on-field exploits don't define Dorrance's program; they never have. He's always insisted on character development being his No. 1 priority. Academic success is a close second.

Thus, the room's left wall is devoted to both.

The most prestigious award handed out at the team's annual banquet is the Kelly Muldoon Award. Named after Kelly Muldoon – a 12-year-old cancer patient from Florida who met the women's soccer team when she was in North Carolina for treatment in 2006 – the award goes to the player who best exemplifies the program's core character values. A plaque honoring past winners adorns the room's left wall.

Beside it, pictures commemorate the program's three NCAA Elite 90 Award winners. The award recognizes the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA competing at the finals site of the NCAA's 90 championships. Frances Reuland received it last season with a 4.0 GPA.

"We're dying to get back to the Final Four this year because then sweet Frannie Reuland might be the only two-time winner of this award in (women's soccer) history," Dorrance said. "Because as a senior, I don't care who is in the room. No one is going to beat her because she's a senior and she has a 4.0 right now."

With the support of Joe Breschi, Jenny Levy and Carlos Somoano, Dorrance said he plans on moving the closing room to the conference room in their programs' Hall of Fame building next season. But that's not pressing at this point.

The Tar Heels enter the NCAA Tournament, which begins with a first-round game against High Point at 1 p.m. Saturday at Cary's WakeMed Soccer Park, as one of four No. 1 seeds. They earned 21 No. 1 seeds from 1986-2010. This marks just their second over the last seven seasons.

Since 2010, six non-UNC teams have claimed a national championship. That many programs didn't beat out the Tar Heels for a national title until the 26th NCAA Tournament in 2007.

A growing talent pool and broader recruiting timeline are the likely causes of the seemingly smaller competition gap between UNC and other programs. Still, the Tar Heels' achievements are incomparable.

A glance into the closing room reaffirms that.

"No one can set up a room like that," Dorrance said. "They can certainly buy fake trophies, but they haven't won them. So, if they design a room like that, it's about what they're planning on doing in the future. But that room is history. And right now, no one can set up that kind of history.

"So, we show them that history. If that excites them about coming to an environment that has that kind of tradition and success, what they're hoping is they would come and continue to replicate that. And that's what we're hoping, as well."

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