Tumolo had unfinished business with the U.S. team on the field, but off of it, she spent time empowering her teammates to achieve their goals. At the same time, she used her growing platform to speak on her identity as a gay women’s lacrosse player and encourage others in the game to have the courage to be themselves.
As her coaching career began, first at Syracuse and then at Florida before moving to Oregon, Tumolo had her sights set on making the 2017 U.S. team heading to the World Cup in England.
After a grueling tryout process, Tumolo was standing on the practice field at Oregon when she got the call from coach Ricky Fried.
“I was at the 30-yard mark on a field, that's how memorable it was,” she joked. “I knew how I felt in 2013, so I kind of was ready for anything. When I answered the phone, he was happy to say that I made the team. It was an incredible feeling. Playing for your country and putting on the red, white and blue is the higher honor.”
Tumolo made the trip to Guildford, England to play for her first gold medal in the summer of 2017. She brought her world-class stick skills, her creativity and energy unmatched in program history. Before each game of the World Cup, sounds of Tumolo singing bounced off the walls of the U.S. locker room.
The go-to pre-game song was “Come on Over” by Christina Aguilera, but she also mixed in the national anthem.
“She would belt out any song that popped into her head," Carr joked.
On the field, she was just as impactful. Tumolo finished the gold-medal run for the U.S. with 12 goals and 17 assists — good for the seventh-best total in a single tournament. She followed the World Cup with another strong performance en route to the U.S. team’s gold medal in lacrosse’s first-ever World Games competition.