Soon after, another former coach called Carr with an opportunity. Levy asked her to come on as North Carolina’s first volunteer assistant, a post since held by the likes of Marie McCool, Sam Geiersbach and Andie Aldave.
“Good coaches are servant leaders first and care about others,” Levy said. “For Cookie, that was very natural.”
Carr also thrived in the USA system, qualifying for the 2013 and 2017 world championship teams that took home gold medals in Canada and England, respectively. As an international athlete, much of the work occurs out of view.
“A lot of the time you are working on your own.” Carr said. “You are getting up at a certain hour, going to the gym and doing whatever you need to do to get your mind and body in the right place so when you get together for these training weekends, you pick up where you left off.”
The game kept growing. Carr played for the Baltimore Ride during the 2016 United Women’s Lacrosse League season and the Upstate Pride in the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League for two years as women’s lacrosse tried to make a dent in the pro scene. Carr continued to be a pioneer, channeling the ’99ers before her.
“It’s so funny you keep using ‘pioneer,’” Carr said. “It’s hard to feel like that is something you encapsulate when you’re just trying to do your thing and give back, play the game, have fun and grow the game.”
Carr's coaching career also took off. She served an assistant at Stanford for three seasons from 2016-19 and was headed to Ohio State in 2020, around the time she was gearing up for another run at the national team.
Then came the pandemic, setting off a ripple effect in all aspects of her lacrosse life. College lacrosse shut down for the season. The world championship was pushed back from 2021 to 2022. The WPLL shut down permanently.
Carr could hear the clock ticking. “The more veteran you are, the more special each moment feels,” she said.
That summer, Carr moved closer to home when an assistant role came open at Johns Hopkins. Carr at Hopkins made sense. The plot twist? The internationally lauded defender was hired as an offensive coordinator. Blue Jays head coach Janine Tucker admired her gumption.
“She explained that as a defender, ‘I know how to shut down offensive players,’” Tucker said. “‘I want to bring the other side as the offensive coordinator for you and use everything I know how to shut down an offense to be able to teach your women.’ It was so outside of the box.”
Carr wound up being the perfect coach at the perfect time. Because of the pandemic, she did not meet the team in person until January 2021, more than six months after Hopkins hired her. Just as she did for the U.S. team, Carr kept the team connected from a distance.
“It was a weird time,” Tucker said. “She brought her leadership style and her ability to captain the U.S. team to us, and we were able to grow trust and camaraderie [over Zoom].”
Carr’s time with Hopkins would end in 2022 when Tucker retired. So would her run with red, white and blue. She was one of the final players cut from the 18-woman roster. The call came from an old friend, coach and boss in Levy, who took the reins of the team in 2017.
“Having to cut a veteran who had given the national team so much leadership over the years was really hard,” Levy said. “Personally, cutting one of my own players was really, really hard. It hurt for everybody.”
Carr responded by asking Levy for the names of every player who made it. Not so she could argue, but so she could congratulate each of them. “They’re your teammates and your friends,” she said. “Being joyful and happy for them was important. It’s everyone’s goal.”
Still, it hurt.
“For athletes in general, especially someone like Cookie who has been playing for her entire life, your identity isn’t lacrosse but sometimes it feels that way,” McKenzie said. “You put so much effort into something you love. She really did give it her all.”