Thread by @themhartman

in december, i got a tip about an exodus of players leaving @uncwomenssoccer. 5 months later, here's my piece at @TheAssemblyNC about a coach allegedly dating a player, a hostile environment, and players feeling forgotten theassemblync.com/culture/sports…

there are lots of interesting details in the story (and a lot more left out of the story), but here are the highlights

in june 2023, sam johnson visited her former teammate and unc staff member alex kimball. during that visit, johnson said kimball and a unc player told her they were dating

johnson met with anson dorrance and told him about the alleged relationship.

two months later, he promoted kimball and made her an assistant coach

a couple months after that, unc's equal opportunity and compliance office caught wind of the allegations and opened an investigation. kimball left the team in november, during the ncaa tournament

what did dorrance have to say about all of this?

“There is no way I would know anything about this or basically support a rumor like that”

what about kimball?

first of all, she denies dating a player and says they were just close friends.

the first time i asked her, she told me the allegations stemmed from players' concerns of favoritism and a conflict she had with a different player. she didn't mention sam johnson at all (and i hadn't spoken to johnson yet)

when i later asked kimball about johnson's version of events, kimball said that johnson invented the whole thing, was the driving force behind the investigation, and that no players ever claimed she was dating a player

the fact that i spoke to multiple players who said they suspected the relationship seems to make clear that points two and three aren't true

in any case, somehow people figured out which players spoke to the eoc investigators and what they said, which created even more conflict within the locker room

one player i spoke to put her thoughts like this: "That was honestly like: What am I doing here?" she's no longer on the team.

but it's important to emphasize that the kimball allegations weren't the start of the problems. they were more like the final straw

players were just really, really unhappy. they told me they felt like mannequins and like the coaching staff didn't see them as people

one indicator and potential cause of the trouble: dorrance had basically the same coaching staff for decades, but they're leaving too. his longtime righthand man, bill palladino, left in 2019, and three more coaches left in the past 2 years

when i asked dorrance about all this, he told me about how he determines playing time and said the complaints and transfers were just about a super competitive environment

but that's not what the players were taking issue with. they were upset that dorrance didn't remember their names, that the team would forget to order them gear, that they felt disrespected

a lot of that goes back to longtime dorrance methods, including making players anonymously rank players on how they embody team values like “We don’t freak out over ridiculous issues or live in fragile states of emotional catharsis or create crises where none should exist.”

for people who already felt deeply disrespected in an already divided locker room, those things became little more than organized bullying, according to the players i spoke with

but you can also understand it as dorrance's new strategy, which is very much about creating star players. he told me that if the program never won another title but produced more pros than other colleges, he'd see that as success

and if you're a unc fan that wants to see more titles, dorrance was pretty straightforward. his quote: “If the fans would like us to get back in that game, give me a collective where I can buy players."

he doesn't seem too apt to hear criticism, either. one parent of a former player told me that dorrance once told them: “I can do whatever I want because they named the stadium after me.”

a coda that didn't fit in the story: the man fighting with students in the second slideshow of this great collection of angelica edwards' unc encampment photos is unc gm/goalkeeping coach chris ducar indyweek.com/news/orange/at…