April in U.S. Women's Soccer.

The coach of our women's national soccer team, April Heinrichs, tells it exactly as it is at home and abroad.

When did you start playing soccer in Littleton, CO?

HEINRICHS: I started Little League soccer when I was six years old. My parents would drop me off at the field because I had a lot of energy and because that's what you did in suburban America -- you got your kids into anything they could latch on to.

COACH: Did you play any other sports?

HEINRICHS: Basketball, softball, and track (I ran the 400 and the 200). When I was 14 I played on my first under-14 select team where they actually had try-outs.

COACH: You were eight-years old when Title IX was passed in 1972. When did you become aware of this landmark decision and did you have any idea what kind of impact it would have on women's athletics?

HEINRICHS: My recollection of it and its meaning was that my sisters, who were in middle school, were celebrating because they believed it meant that they wouldn't have to wear dresses to school anymore! And I thought to myself, "Thank God."

The law called for equal treatment and fairness for women in sport and all I could think was: "That's wonderful! Now I don't have to wear a dress."

Not what all of the activists would like to hear from me, but that was my first memory.

COACH: We know you were recruited by the University of North Carolina and played for Anson Dorrance. How did you do?

HEINRICHS: I set a school record 225 points (87 goals, 51 assists), a record later broken by Mia Hamm, and my #2 was the first women's soccer jersey retired in school history.

COACH: What happened when you graduated from North Carolina?

HEINRICHS: I played professionally in Italy. It actually was not very professional. We just got expenses. But I did learn that there was more than one way to look at soccer -- you could see it through many eyes. That was important, especially in our naive view in America, at least in women's soccer, where there was only one way and that was the way we were then doing it.

To be exposed to different styles and different philosophies and training was important for me and timely because I was just starting to get into coaching.

COACH: Who was the most influential person in your growth as a soccer player? Did you have any women to look up to?

HEINRICHS: As a player, the most influential person in my career was Anson Dorrance, the coach at North Carolina.

The people I looked up to were male role models from other sports -- Julius Erving, Larry Bird.

When I played basketball, I'd try to play like Dr. J. And when I played backyard football with my buddies in the neighborhood, I would try to play like Larry Csonka. We'd play with football pads and helmets and I'd try to run right through people instead of around them.

COACH: Maybe we could use a few soccer players like Larry Csonka?

HEINRICHS: I think we have plenty of soccer players like Larry Csonka. We could use a few with the grace and skill of Dr. J.

COACH: You were injured and missed the first U.S. women's national team game in Italy in 1985. What was it like finally taking the field for your first game with the women's national team in 1986?

HEINRICHS: Wonderful! You know the people who don't put their hand on their chest during the national anthem, who don't really understand patriotism - all they have to do is play for their country once or, represent their country in the military to become one of the most patriotic people they know.

I feel that playing for my national team has made me really appreciate the country we live in, the patriotism we have, the rights we have as Americans. Through and through, I think that we're the luckiest of human beings alive because we live in America.

COACH: You went on to score 38 goals in 47 games with the national team, and you were voted Female Player of the 80's by Soccer America. You finished your international playing career by scoring four goals in five games on a team that won the first Women's World Cup in China in 1991. When did you become interested in coaching?

HEINRICHS: I started coaching at a very young age. I actually did some camp coaching when I was 14 years old.

But I never really grabbed hold of it. Even when I was in college I wasn't that much interested in it. When I graduated from college, I was looking for a job in television and film, but people were looking for me to go into coaching.

I took a job at William & Mary, the first job offer I ever had. After two weeks of coaching, I knew I wanted to do it the rest of my life. I loved it!

COACH: Who did you model yourself after as a coach?

HEINRICHS: John Ellis, who served as my assistant coach on the 2000 Olympic team, really has had the most profound influence on my personality as a coach. He has also been my role model as a coach, and he'll be my role model as I move into my twilight years.

COACH: Ellis is a native Englishman who has been coaching youth soccer in the U.S. since the early '80s. He has won three national championships and five regional championships with various girls and boys teams. Is it strange having your mentor as your assistant?

HEINRICHS: He's someone who grabbed me at a young age and said I'd like you to work with me. He took me under his wing and basically said, "Hey, follow me around, I'd like to show you some of the methods of coaching." I was a very good student. I paid attention to everything. I think my coaching style is much more like John Ellis than anyone else.

Hiring John as my assistant gave me someone who was incredibly loyal, who thought a lot like I did, to whom I could delegate any responsibility, who would do a great job, and whom I knew would never have an agenda.

It has made people curious: "John assisting you?" It's not a big deal. I probably will be assisting some of the youth national team coaches during the next year or two.

COACH: How did you get your first head-coaching position at Princeton in 1990? What was your first year like?

HEINRICHS: It was wonderful, blissful in some ways. I think the players were very fearful that I would come in there and try to run the program like a national team. I didn't.

We took the approach that the best way to succeed out on the field was to make sure we'd enjoy everything we did in practice.

Even though I was at Princeton for only one year I still get letters from people who played for me about some of the funny things we did -- the mud-slide practice and the spoof practice. Some of the stories keep growing better with the passage of time, but they are very memorable.

COACH: After coaching at Princeton, you moved on to Maryland (1991-95) and then Virginia (1996 through 1999). At Maryland you were voted ACC Coach of the Year in 1995 then led Virginia to a 52-27-7 record over four seasons. Did you feel that you were ready for bigger things at this stage of your career?

HEINRICHS: At Maryland I took over a program that was well below .500 and my focus was on just trying to make it a program that other schools respected.

My last year there we made it to the Final Eight and people respected us. Nowadays, Maryland is quite well respected in women's soccer, and I feel very pleased about it.

The move to Virginia was one of those, hey, Charlottesville is a great place to live and this is the University of Virginia. Go there and people will come for the school first and then also to play soccer.

The thing I often ran into while recruiting at Maryland was that the kids were interested in Maryland because I was the coach, but in the end they wound up choosing another school because Maryland was their third or fourth choice academically.

Virginia was a great marriage, if you will.

COACH: You took over as the head coach of the women's national team on January 18, 2000, after Tony DiCicco resigned. Was the possibility of coaching the national team in your mind when you stopped playing in 1991?

HEINRICHS: I started coaching in 1987 and then went to work with John Ellis in the summer of '88. He put his arm around me and said, "Young lady, some day you're going to be the national team coach."

That's the first time it ever entered my mind. Although I had been playing for the national team, I had never really considered it as a career path.

After I fell in love with coaching, what I really wanted to do was become the best coach. My goal early on was to become the national team coach.

I think that was an erroneous decision on my part. What you realize as you mature is that you're not in control of the board of elections. I refocused myself a few years later. My thinking went like this: I'm in charge of whether I want to coach, I'm in charge of the arena I coach in, I'm in charge of my players. But I'm not in charge of anyone who could make me the national team coach. So, I'm not going to pursue the job. I'm going to pursue being the best coach I can be.

What I tried to do then was coach in every kind of venue. I was put in charge of the state team program in Maryland. I've coached in every region except the West. I've taken regional teams to Europe, and I coached the under-16 national team. I have been the assistant on the Olympic team and the assistant in the World Cup.

COACH: Were you surprised that you got to be the head coach of the national team so soon?

HEINRICHS: Unequivocally, the opportunity came four or five years sooner than I expected. It was before I had really put my plan in place. I was looking farther down the road. Even when Tony [DiCicco] stepped down, I was too surprised to begin thinking of the job.

COACH: Do you think women's soccer is tactically different from the men's game?

HEINRICHS: Several nuances are different, but not significantly different. Of all the sports in the world that I've briefly taken a look at (and I'm not an expert) I think soccer is the most similarly played by males and females, if you take softball and baseball and men's and women's lacrosse, they are radically different. Men's and women's basketball are fairly different. You have the men playing above the rim, a region that the women have not quite yet explored.

COACH: What would your advice be to a men's soccer coach who is taking over a women's team for the first time?

HEINRICHS: Don't do it. I often get phone calls from men who are thinking of coaching women and who think it will be very easy. I believe they will find coaching women emotionally frustrating initially. There's a learning curve involved that you cannot ignore. Anyone who thinks he can drive women and win games is going to find himself on a bumpy road.

COACH: At the Olympics, you lost the gold-medal match to Norway 3-2. How tough was that to take?

HEINRICHS: The best way for me to describe it is that I thought it was the USA team performance of a lifetime. We played the best soccer, on the best day, in the best arena, and under the greatest pressure this team could be put under, and we played the game of a lifetime.

That we didn't win is a lesson in life: Things don't always work out. You can do all the right things and still things won't always go your way.

COACH: Do you think the rest of the world is catching up to the U.S. in women's soccer?

HEINRICHS: Absolutely.

COACH: What role has the Women's World Cup played in popularizing women's soccer abroad?

HEINRICHS: First is the role played by the World Cup Committee, then by all the sponsors and U.S. Soccer and FIFA hosting the World Cup in 1998. That proved to the world that we can sell women's sports and we can fill stadiums.

I believe that all the national federations are feeling pressure to build up women's soccer in their countries so that they won't be embarrassed. Another way of looking at it is that some of the federations realize they can put their women's national team on the map and the way to do it is by supporting them for the Women's World Cup and the Olympics.

COACH: What do you think of the professional women's league (WUSA) that is scheduled to start in the U.S. this spring? Do you plan to coach in it? Do you think it will achieve an immediate success? How would you define a "successful" women's professional league in this country?

HEINRICHS: I don't plan to coach in it. I'm full-time with the women's national team. But I'm fully supportive of WUSA and I can't wait to stand on the sidelines and watch it unfold. I think it will be marvelous.

I'm sure the people involved with the league and the players have their own ideas of what it takes to be successful. To me, just getting it off the ground is a major success in its own right. WUSA is financed, I believe, for at least four years. So it's not going to fold in its first year and that's a major achievement.

COACH: In October, Mexico announced the formation of a professional women's league despite having no recognizable players and a national team consisting mainly of women from Southern California of Mexican descent. Is anyone worried about promoters trying to cash in on the recent success of women's soccer?

HEINRICHS: We don't spend a single moment worrying. We celebrate the thought that all these other countries are taking women's soccer more seriously and putting more money into their national teams because it only males the game better.

COACH: Why has the U.S. women's team been able to achieve immediate success as an international power, while the men's team continues to languish after 70 years of trying?

HEINRICHS: The thing to remember is that we haven't gotten so good so soon. We in the women's game have been working at this for 30 long years -- 30 years of grassroots working soccer, playing, competing, organizing tournaments, 30 years of good, hard work.

The last four have, unequivocally, been possibly the most explosive ever in women's sports.

We started 30 years ago along with the women from the rest of the world. When did the rest of the world start playing men's soccer? 150 years ago! In fairness, the rest of the world had a 50year head start on our men.

COACH: Is women's soccer overseas growing as fast as the men's game is in the U.S.?

HEINRICHS: That's a tough question, I've never been asked that one before. But I would say that it is growing even faster than our men's game.

COACH: Is women's soccer attracting men's coaches in the same fashion as it is doing in women's basketball?

HEINRICHS: Yes, but you have to believe that if men can contribute to and positively influence the level of the game, then great. I'm not one of these people who believe that gender in coaching is an issue.

But I would like to be very careful about reminding people that just because a woman is successful in the women's game doesn't mean that she will be hired to coach in the men's game. And so let's apply the same logic to the women's game when we hire men who have coached in the men's game.

In other words, men who have succeeded in the men's game appear to be automatically qualified to coach in the women's game. But it doesn't happen the other way around. Who would hire Becky Burleigh from Florida or Lesle Gallimore from Washington or April Heinrichs or Lauren Gregg or whatever female you want to recognize as being successful, to coach in the MLS?

COACH: Why do you think we have this double standard?

HEINRICHS: I think it's a societal trend. I think it's deeply embedded in our culture and I think it's going to take more than a year to overcome and a long time to understand.