Taylor Cummings Danseglio showed up to the University of Maryland this past fall with her infant, Sawyer, strapped to her chest, hoping her daughter would act as a baby buffer and keep her on the sideline. Still, upon her arrival, her friends and former teammates needed to know, “Are you playing?”

When you’re the greatest player in program history, there’s no ducking the limelight. Especially while on campus, at the school alumni game.

Alex Aust Holman — the Maryland Charm captain and Maryland lacrosse alumna who was a senior when Cummings Danseglio was a freshman — saw her old friend arrive without equipment and quickly accepted the challenge. Aust Holman told Cummings Danseglio to hand Sawyer off to a player on the sideline and borrow some cleats from the team, knowing she could easily tempt Cummings Danseglio to rehash the glory days. It was that simple, and it worked. Within minutes, Aust Holman said Cummings Danseglio was “ripping it up as usual.”

“It’s a testament to who she is,” Aust Holman, 34, said. “She is a player. She is a coach. But at the end of the day, Taylor is a competitor.”

“She’s won at every single stage possible and become the best at it, so why not be the best at an alumni game, too?”

 

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Cummings Danseglio, 30, is the head coach of the Charm, one of the four inaugural Women's Lacrosse League teams debuting at the 2025 Maybelline WLL Championship Series starting Feb. 11. She retired from playing in 2022 after being named MVP of the World Lacrosse Women’s World Championship and winning a second gold medal with the U.S. women’s national team. She also claimed the inaugural Athletes Unlimited individual crown in 2021.

Cummings Danseglio said she has never regretted retirement knowing she was getting married a few months after the 2022 World Championship and wanting to start a family. She was through playing, but not coaching. She remained the head coach at McDonogh, a private high school in the Baltimore suburbs, until May 2023. There, she won four IAAM titles as a former student and two more championships at the helm.

At Maryland, she led the Terps to the national title stage all four years as a player, securing back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015, and is the only three-time Tewaaraton Award winner in the sport’s history. She graduated in 2016 having started all 92 games and recorded 229 goals, 94 assists, 168 ground balls and 509 draw controls, the most in program history. Her prowess raised the standard at Maryland and throughout the NCAA. It still looms over players who seek to overtake her records. 

“She is everything as far as Maryland lacrosse,” Aust Holman said.

It’s also why, when Cummings Danseglio joined the Charm’s first team Zoom meeting in January, former Terp defender Abby Bosco couldn’t help but think, “Are you playing?”

“We would all love to have her play with us,” Bosco said. “When you think of lacrosse, you immediately think of her.”

Cummings Danseglio said her former teammates and now players give her more credit than she allows herself. Her Maybelline Championship Series attire won’t involve a stick and goggles, but she couldn’t pass up what she called “a great opportunity to spotlight women’s lacrosse” in the first-ever pro-league Sixes tournament.

“The sport continues to grow in visibility, people picking up a stick playing and supporting the women’s league,” Cummings Danseglio said. “There’s been quite a few women’s leagues over the years (like Athletes Unlimited and the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League). I’ve been a part of all of them in some fashion, so I’m excited to see this one hopefully stick, and be a great thing for young players to aspire to.”

When she first heard of the WLL, Cummings Danseglio was curious and wanted to know more about it. She texted her successor of sorts, Charlotte North, the captain of the Boston Guard and two-time Tewaaraton Award winner who was heavily involved in the league’s launch.

And there it was, again.

“Will you play?” North asked her.

But there was no wearing Cummings Danseglio down. It’s not that she can’t return — “Sixes is a lot for anybody. I’ve been training a long time to do it, but if anyone could do it, I’m sure (Taylor) could,” said Charm attacker Megan Whittle, who overlapped with Cummings Danseglio for two years at both McDonogh and Maryland. It’s rather that she’s two feet into a new lacrosse phase and is most ebullient nowadays on the sideline with a clipboard in hand — or baby strapped to her chest.