Marie McCool is a conqueress in the NCAA, Catan — and now, the WLL

North Carolina assistant coach Marie McCool flew back to Chapel Hill from NCAA championship weekend in Foxborough, Mass., undefeated.

The Tar Heels completed their perfect season, going 22-0 to claim the program’s fourth national title. It was a feat that earned UNC head coach Jen Levy, McCool and the two other assistant coaches — Kayla Wood and Maiah Bartlett — the 2025 IWLCA Coaching Staff of the Year honors.

It was McCool’s first trophy as a college coach after helping lead Carolina to the 2016 national championship. But it wasn’t the only ultra-competitive, uber-important game she topped that late-May weekend.

“I did win the last game before the national championship,” McCool said. “My parents were in the hotel and I was like, ‘I gotta go, my Super Bowl is tonight. My championship is tonight.’”

This personal battle royale McCool speaks of? “My final game of Catan,” she said.

Carolina Catan games originated during the ACC tournament in April, when McCool brought a Catan board to fill the staff’s downtime at the hotel. Of those sitting around the table for the first go — which pit McCool, Levy, Bartlett, Wood and director of operations Cori Boyle against each other — McCool was the only staff member who had ever played before, so she taught the rest. The board then traveled with them to the Final Four, until the Catan championship on May 24, the night before the NCAA title game: the first win of McCool’s weekend sweep.

“You could imagine a competitive game like that, how it gets with a staff full of former Division I athletes,” McCool said.

McCool starred at UNC from 2015-18, becoming the first two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist in program history and setting the single-season record for draw controls (165). She’ll now suit up for Team Izzy during the Maybelline WLL All-Star Game on July 4 in Kansas City.

On Team Izzy, four players hail from UNC (McCool, Wood, Ally Mastroianni and Emily Nalls) and five from Northwestern (Izzy Scane, Kendall Halpern, Erin Coykendall, Sam Smith and Delaney Sweitzer).

“We have quite a few Tar Heels on our team, so I’m really excited to be reunited with the UNC players but also play with new players,” McCool said.

“I’ve played with all of the team’s attack. I’m just excited to be on the same team as them because I’ve also played against a lot of them. It’s just really nice to be on the same team. Izzy is someone I played with last summer and I get to play with on the U.S. women’s national team. She’s such an incredible player. Someone who I’d much rather be on her team than go against her.”

Now as a veteran, McCool said her role during the All-Star Game is “to help the people around me be the best they can be using my experiences as a player over the years and obviously as a coach now — trying my best to be a great leader and help people be the best they can be to elevate our team’s play.”

McCool’s return to Chapel Hill as, at first, a volunteer assistant coach in 2021 was a spontaneous one. After graduating, the Moorestown, N.J., native moved to New York City thinking she would get her lacrosse fix only from playing for the U.S. women’s national team. Lacrosse, to that point, had consumed much of her daily life for her entire life, and she said she “wanted to try something different.”

Then Levy called and asked if she wanted the volunteer gig, with the chance to train on campus since many of the gyms and workout spaces in New York City were closed due to COVID-19. The pandemic, McCool said, was the reason she had interest in the opportunity, which snowballed into the assistant job. McCool will be in her fourth year on staff during the 2026 season.

“I didn’t really have any expectations except to be around the sport and have fun,” McCool said. “From there I realized I really, really love coaching and being around players and a team every single day.”

So, the championship chase resumed. Hoisting the trophy on May 25 was “indescribable,” McCool said.

“Whether you’re a player, coach or staff member, when you see all that hard work pay off it is just such an incredible feeling,” she said.

The team flew back to Chapel Hill that night, and the staff went golfing together the next day to celebrate. McCool wasn’t shooting well. To cheer her up, the staff reminded McCool of the “most important game” recently won, she said.

“I was like, ‘The Catan game?’ And they were like, ‘No, the national championship,’” McCool said.