Reese interviewed for a task promoting life insurance coverage, “and I did not even know what life insurance coverage was,” she states now, appreciating the fortuitous solution that shortly emerged. Reese’s mentor, Cindy Timchal, wanted her to continue to be at Maryland as part of the coaching workers. Reese had worked lacrosse summer time camps at Maryland and excelled as a player. She just hadn’t realized faculty coaching could be a career.
In hindsight, Timchal primed Reese and other long run coaches for their career simply because she “instilled this really like of the game for us, and we just cherished becoming jointly,” Reese explained. “We cherished currently being close to the activity.”
So Reese hardly ever remaining. She labored with Timchal for 5 seasons, then was Denver’s head coach for a few. Maryland brought Reese back to School Park to direct the system in 2007, and due to the fact then she has orchestrated 1 of the most profitable runs in the sport’s background.
Timchal’s coaching tree extends prominently as a result of the field, with 6 of her former Maryland gamers serving as head coaches in the 29-staff NCAA event subject. Reese leads the next-seeded Terrapins (17-1) as they find the school’s 15th NCAA title, and a few other seeded teams are coached by Maryland graduates. Reese’s team earned a 1st-round bye and will meet Duke, coached by previous Terp Kerstin Kimel, or in-state rival Johns Hopkins in the next round Sunday.
Reese and her fellow Terps-turned-coaches keep including branches to the Timchal tree. Maryland alumna Kelly Amonte Hiller, who led Northwestern to seven countrywide titles throughout an 8-year extend from 2005 to 2012, has 4 of her previous Wildcats coaching groups in this year’s event. Virginia is the only other university that has several previous gamers main systems on this phase — Jenny Levy of major-seeded North Carolina and Julie Myers at her alma mater.
“Either we make the task definitely seem glamorous as coaches or it’s that these players are loving their encounter and they want to give it back again to other pupil-athletes,” reported Jen Adams, a former Terp who’s now the mentor of sixth-seeded Loyola (Md.). “That’s what helps make me so proud. And we figured out that at the College of Maryland. That’s bred into all of us.”
Adams, the Terps’ all-time leader in factors, performed her freshman time in 1998, when Reese was a senior. Reese and Adams won the nationwide title each individual year they played for Maryland, with Adams’s senior season capping a 7-calendar year operate of dominance. Adams, whose initial aspirations provided getting a sports activities agent or doing the job in business serious estate, served as an undergraduate coach as she concluded her diploma. Via that practical experience, she understood, “Okay, you’re going to pass up this way too much.” So she stayed in the activity, far too, at some point doing work underneath Reese at Denver and Maryland.
Reese’s affect permeates the sport as her gamers go on to turn into Division I assistants and significant school coaches. Mindy Jones, a 2009 Maryland graduate who leads St. Mary’s Substantial in Annapolis, finds herself undertaking “this two-hand aggressive clap” that reminds her of Reese. Kathy Rudkin at Severn does not thoughts if procedures are limited as extended as her crew accomplishes what it demands — the exact brain-set Reese has. Taylor Cummings, a 3-time Tewaaraton Award winner, mentioned she repeats a common “Cathy-ism” to her gamers at McDonogh: “Expect practically nothing. Be ready for all the things.”
“You just witness firsthand the effects that a very good mentor can have on you,” Cummings claimed of Reese and longtime assistants Lauri Kenis and Caitlyn Phipps. “Those three were being our mentors, our mothers, our pals, our coaches, our largest advocates and also the folks who pushed us tougher than any individual.”
The university coaches who played for Timchal never have equivalent courses. Every has included her personal flair, Reese stated, and their groups are also shaped by assistants, who may possibly arrive from unique backgrounds. But a lot of of these Maryland alumnae have reached similar heights.
Amonte Hiller has won seven nationwide titles at Northwestern, the No. 4 seed this 12 months. Reese’s teams have been to the Remaining Four 11 instances considering the fact that she took above in 2007. The Terps have received 5 national championships since then although Reese has compiled an astonishing 300-33 file. Acacia Walker-Weinstein of Boston College or university, seeded third this yr, broke via previous year with a national title just after 3 straight runner-up finishes. All 3 groups could attain the Remaining Four later this month.
The championship knowledge attained at Maryland helps make previous players promising coaching candidates. Alex Kahoe performed beneath Timchal at Maryland, and as the head mentor at Saint Joseph’s she stated she preferred to provide a comparable design of “relaxed intensity.” Kahoe has an all-Terps workers, with recent graduates Caroline Steele and Julia Braig as assistants.
In Kahoe’s eighth period, Saint Joseph’s just gained its first Atlantic 10 title in program history. Now the Hawks are in the NCAA tournament for the to start with time.
Kahoe, a two-time NCAA goalkeeper of the yr, set out to construct her plan with a “championship mentality, in which we need to do the job tough and have exciting though we’re accomplishing it,” she said, leaning on what led to success when she was a player in University Park.
That philosophy — emphasised by Timchal, who now coaches at Navy — is what previous gamers credit rating when describing why they enjoyed their time at Maryland. Some of the new graduates stage specifically to Reese.
“We attempt in just about every way that we can to emulate her and go the torch,” explained Rudkin, a transfer from Syracuse who played only the 2018 time at Maryland. Still, she phone calls Reese her major coaching purpose product. “You do not need to have four a long time with her to know how awesome she is.”
It is a bit emotional for Reese to listen to gamers make that immediate tie — that she manufactured them want to mentor. But a single of her primary aims, she claimed, is for her gamers to enjoy their faculty yrs, just as she did. So when they want to give other individuals a similar expertise, “that would make me really happy,” Reese said.
Every single calendar year, a lot more players go by way of the system, generally successful titles together the way. Aurora Cordingley, a transfer from Johns Hopkins, is in Faculty Park for her closing year and sales opportunities the Terps’ assault. With a master’s degree in organization and management, she envisioned to land a desk occupation. This year prompted her to rethink. She’s not completely ready to depart the sport, so she’s hunting at roles as an assistant mentor or a director of functions.
When asked what sparked that decision, she stated how much enjoyable she has had this 12 months and additional, “Cathy kind of inspired me.”

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