Is the Long Reign of UNC Women’s Soccer Over?

The story of women’s soccer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was written long before the 2022 NCAA final.

Sure, the Tar Heels entered the game on a 10-year title drought, but they had won 21 of the 30 NCAA championships offered before then, plus another national championship the year before the NCAA started its competition. UNC-CH alumni account for a third of U.S. Women’s World Cup winners. The U.S. Soccer Federation is run by a former Tar Heel. Behind it all is the team’s legendary coach, Anson Dorrance, who was at the helm of the U.S. women’s national team for their first World Cup victory and led UNC to all 22 of its national titles.

For more than 40 years, the team has been the most dominant force in all of U.S. women’s soccer. 

So with only 10 minutes to play and UNC up 2-0 against UCLA, it looked like the dynasty would be re-established. Instead, those final minutes now look like more of the era of change and conflict for the program.

The Tar Heels gave up two quick goals—the second with 13 seconds remaining—before losing in overtime. They followed it up with a 2023 season marked by more blown leads, including a brutal season-ending loss to Brigham Young University despite leading 3-0 at halftime. 

The back-to-back frustrating season enders were already raising questions when The Daily Tar Heel reported that 21 players from the 2023 roster were leaving. Nine of them transferred to other schools, 11 went pro, and another went on to a non-soccer career. Then, three of the seven expected rookies for 2024 opted to go pro instead.

Even Dorrance’s famously stable coaching staff has been shifting. Three coaches have left in the past two years. One, Alex Kimball, exited after only a few months as a coach, following a university investigation into allegations that she was dating a player. Kimball said she did not date the player and did nothing wrong.

The Assembly interviewed eight former players who were on the team in recent years or have remained close to it, most of whom spoke anonymously because of Dorrance’s influence in the soccer world. Though some said they had good experiences with the program, others described a high-pressure system that they said isn’t supporting all of its young athletes—to the detriment of their wellbeing and the winning record that made Dorrance and UNC women’s soccer famous.

Dorrance said in a statement that he cares about all of his players and has “worked every day for 48 years at Carolina to make their college experience the best it can be.”

A Difficult Year

Dorrance, 73, is a giant of women’s soccer. Not only is he the winningest coach in women’s collegiate soccer history, but his streak of NCAA titles and development of star players like Mia Hamm helped put the sport on the map. 

He’s become famous across the sport for his training approach. Called the “competitive cauldron,” it involves tracking each player across a wide range of metrics at every practice and sharing the metrics with the team. 

Dorrance hasn’t won a national title since 2012, but he told The Assembly that a string of players-turned-professionals shows that his system is still working. Eleven of the 21 players who left UNC after the 2023 season went pro, including six selected in this year’s National Women’s Soccer League draft. In interviews with The Assembly, Dorrance said it’s the most ever from a single college team. 

“They are amazing—the coaches were just absolutely everything,” Savy King, who was selected second in the 2024 NWSL draft after her freshman year at UNC, told The Assembly. “Even though my time was short there, I’m just so grateful for the time that I spent there because of how much I learned and the environment that I was able to grow in.”

But the nine players who transferred after last season far outstrips the number of early exits from UNC’s main competitors. UCLA only had three transfers—two seniors and a graduate transfer. Florida State, last year’s champion, and Stanford, the school Dorrance most often compares UNC to, had just one transfer apiece, both upperclassmen.

Among UNC’s transfers were six underclassmen, including highly touted recruits like Melina Rebimbas, who was one of only two freshmen to play in all 23 games last year, but opted to leave for Alabama. Emily Colton started every game for three years at UNC before heading to Wake Forest ahead of her senior season. (Dorrance told The Assembly the team will add five transfer students in 2024, though none have been announced.)

Dorrance’s program is designed to be stressful, and he demands total commitment. According to Tim Crothers’ 2006 biography of Dorrance, he “sincerely tells his players he considers being ill a sign of weakness.” But former players said the 2023 season was particularly tense, even before the allegations about Kimball, a former player who returned to UNC initially in a player development role.

In June 2023, Samantha Martel Johnson, a retired Utah Royals teammate of Kimball’s, visited her in Chapel Hill. A UNC player who Kimball described as a friend picked Johnson up from the airport; by that evening, Johnson said, she realized the player and Kimball were more than that.

“I was like, ‘Oh you’re dating,’” Johnson recalled. “And [Kimball] was like, ‘Yeah.’”

Over the next few days, Johnson said the inappropriateness of the situation sank in. Though she had only just met Dorrance and had no ties to the program, she felt compelled to say something. She stopped by his office and told him Kimball was dating a player.

Dorrance seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, and Johnson left with the impression that he would take it seriously. Kimball denied telling Johnson she was dating a player, but she said Dorrance approached her about the allegations. “He asked me if any of the information he got was true, and it was a very simple no,” Kimball wrote in an email to The Assembly. 

Two months later, Kimball was promoted to assistant coach.

“He got away with putting his players in an unsafe environment,” Johnson said.

Dorrance said he couldn’t talk about the allegations. “There is no way I would know anything about this or basically support a rumor like that,” he told The Assembly. 

Dorrance declined additional interviews with The Assembly after being asked about Kimball but provided a statement through a UNC athletics spokesperson. “I cannot comment on specific personnel matters, but my coaching staff and I receive all University trainings and we understand it is our responsibility to report any concerns through our department’s ‘Up and Out’ process to ensure any issues are properly investigated,” he said.

It was not the first time Dorrance was accused of an inappropriate environment. In 2004 and 2008 he reached settlements with two former players who accused him of sexual harassment; he denied the allegations but admitted to participating in group discussions about players’ romantic and sexual lives.

Kimball said she never denied having a personal connection to the player, and she acknowledged that she was closer to that player than others on the team. But Kimball said that they were merely close friends and that they never did anything “that could ever make anyone uncomfortable.”

When originally asked about the alleged relationship, Kimball said an unrelated conflict with a different athlete had put a “target on my back” with the soccer team. When later asked about Johnson’s version of events, she said she and Johnson had been “intimate” in the past and she suspected Johnson had wanted to rekindle those feelings. Kimball later added that “SJ was the driver in it all” and said no UNC athletes had claimed she was dating a player.

Johnson said she and Kimball were briefly involved years earlier but that she had no romantic interest in Kimball in 2023.

Two people close to the 2023 team said UNC players did suspect that Kimball was dating one of their teammates before they learned of Johnson’s allegation. The pair’s social media posts raised questions, the former player said, and teammates saw the player’s car parked at Kimball’s house late at night. 

In October, UNC’s Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office opened an investigation into Kimball. The investigation is not public record, and The Assembly could not determine what prompted it. Johnson and some players on the 2023 team said they were interviewed. Some players said word got around about who spoke to investigators, deepening conflict on the team.

When asked about the investigation’s findings, Kimball said, “It was the amorous relationship policy.” UNC’s policy on improper relationships between students and employees says a prohibited amorous relationship exists when two people “(a) have a sexual union or (b) engage in romantic partnering or courtship that may or may not have been consummated sexually.” 

Asked if the investigation found she violated that policy, Kimball wrote, “I was given options.” 

Personnel records show that Kimball left Dorrance’s staff on November 17, the day of UNC’s second-round NCAA tournament game. Both she and Dorrance say it was her decision. 

Kimball says she returned to her hometown of Salt Lake City to be closer to family and to make more money. “We were paying her basically dirt,” Dorrance said. Her LinkedIn profile currently lists her as a self-employed technical trainer, and she says she has recently been acting as a caretaker for her grandfather. 

UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham declined to answer questions about Kimball, the investigation, and other topics, instead providing a written statement. 

“Although we are not able to comment about personnel matters related to students, coaches or staff, we take all concerns and complaints seriously,” it read, adding that the department addresses issues related to safety or threatening behavior immediately and reports them to the university. “The University handles every report of alleged misconduct with a commitment to the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff, and to a fair process for all parties involved.”

The Cauldron and the Cliques

Kimball’s alleged relationship wasn’t the start of UNC’s problems, but it was the final straw for one former player who was on the 2023 roster. “That was honestly like: What am I doing here?” she told The Assembly. 

Dorrance’s approach had long been polarizing, and some players were driven to the limit by his methods and the team culture. A large part of the issue was his way of categorizing players. 

Several former players from multiple different teams said Dorrance makes clear which athletes are stars and which are not. One former player said roles include starters, reserves, and deep reserves. Some players are meant to raise the academic standards; some boost team morale. 

Former players said those who aren’t stars can endure frustrating slights, such as their names being mispronounced. They said athletes who didn’t play often were frequently forgotten when the team ordered gear like cleats and hoodies and had to harangue staff to get basic supplies. 

Dorrance said he is forthright with players about his expectations.

“I hope none of them said that I promised them they were going to start out of high school, because I’ve never said that to anyone, ever,” he explained. “Heck, Mia Hamm her freshman year didn’t start the whole time, and she was already on the US full national team.”

He said it was particularly hard for players to make game line-ups in 2023 because almost all the 2022 starters returned, though he noted that King earned a starting position as a freshman defender.

Amplifying the competition between stars and less-prominent players is Dorrance’s competitive cauldron, which he has described publicly for years. Every action at UNC practices is supposed to be tracked and measured. Every goal and pass during a scrimmage is noted by team managers, and players are awarded points based on their performance. At other times, the team conducts specific drills to measure various soccer abilities, like who can head the ball the farthest or complete the most long passes. Every week, Dorrance and his staff post a complete ranking of the team. 

Dorrance says the rankings are an objective way to determine which players get to play. Then, he says, how they perform on the field determines how much playing time they get. The only exceptions to the process are when multiple players from the same position make it into the cauldron’s top 10.

For some, the constant measurement was an effective challenge.

“You come out of high school and you’re one of the best players on your team,” said Ally Sentnor, the first pick in the 2024 draft. “And then you go on to UNC and you’re like, wow, these girls are better than me and I need to up my game.”

But others doubted the process was objective. One former player said that when the team was short on managers during practices, they didn’t pay attention to reserves, making it impossible to move up in Dorrance’s cauldron. At other times the reserves believed they got too much attention in training, in ways that players said felt like the coaches were trying to drive down their rankings.

Former players were particularly critical of one element of the cauldron: the core-value rankings.

Each season, the team would gather together and players would anonymously rate each other on how well they embody the team’s core values. Compiled by Dorrance, the values include “We care about each other as teammates and as human beings” and “We don’t freak out over ridiculous issues or live in fragile states of emotional catharsis or create crises where none should exist.”

Afterward, Dorrance would review each player’s rankings in end-of-the-season meetings, using them to give feedback for where each player stood with her teammates. But some former players said it felt unnecessarily personal and was particularly problematic after the disruptions of COVID and amid rising rates of anxiety and suicide for high-achieving college students.

Some alumni of the program have said that the team’s emphasis has shifted from winning titles to promoting stars. They say game plans now center a handful of players, and players aren’t as united as they were in UNC’s glory days. 

Dorrance says the shift has been necessary to compete in the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics. Potential recruits now have more schools to choose from, more freedom to transfer, and better professional opportunities—both in the NWSL and from name, image and likeness deals in college—all of which makes it harder to bring in and retain top talent.

Conference realignment also means schools in bigger conferences or with fewer varsity sports can offer athletes more money and better NIL deals than UNC can, Dorrance said.

“If the fans would like us to get back in that game, give me a collective where I can buy players,” Dorrance said.

Asked if he would be satisfied if UNC didn’t win another title but produced more professionals than any other NCAA program, Dorrance was straightforward: “That would be success.”

Dorrance has long brushed off criticism, according to the 2006 biography, citing his importance to UNC soccer. One recent player’s parent said they heard Dorrance dismiss a critique by saying: “I can do whatever I want because they named the stadium after me.”