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Impossible.
That's the word most often used to describe what Anson Dorrance has done as a soccer coach. First, there are the remarkable eighteen national championships and then there's the fact that his teams have won 94 percent of their games. But imagine that the greatest dynasty in the history of college sports has been created by a man who never aspired to coach and got the job only after a case of mistaken identity. Imagine that the UNC program is run in such chaos that Dorrance can't remember the names of some if his players and often arrives late for games after getting lost in transit. Yet Dorrance is considered by to be a great leader, motivator, mentor, and he is certainly one of the most successful coaches in all of sport.
Through it all, Dorrance has groomed more All-Americans than any other coach in any sport. In The Man Watching, Dorrance and his players describe in gripping detail, how he breeds "savages" in practice by tossing them into his grueling "competitive cauldron" and then motivates them to outduel each other through his sarcastic wit, pushing them to the boundaries of their physical and emotional endurance. In this book Dorrance also tells his side of the story for the first time about the lawsuit filed by two former UNC players, which threatened to destroy his career. Crothers spent four soccer seasons interviewing Tar Heels from every era along with players and coaches from other programs to create the most comprehensive, intimate, and unfiltered look ever inside and athletic dynasty.
This is not a book about a soccer coach, but about one fascinating man and the 200 young women he has inspired to believe that anything is possible.
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