Tar Heels Welcome Cannizzaro To Coaching Staff

CHAPEL HILL—The University of North Carolina has hired former Tar Heel national player of the year Kara Cannizzaro as its women's lacrosse director of operations, head coach Jenny Levy announced on Thursday. Her responsibilities include a number of behind-the-scenes duties, including guiding the team's social media efforts.

Cannizzaro, a midfielder from Cazenovia, N.Y., led the Tar Heels to their first NCAA championship as a senior team captain in 2013. She was the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player and won the Honda Award for Lacrosse as national player of the year that spring. She is the only Tar Heel lacrosse player to win the Honda Award, as well as one of two women's lacrosse players to win the Patterson Medal as the most outstanding female student-athlete at UNC.

"We are very excited to welcome Kara back to Chapel Hill," Levy says. "Her passion and enthusiasm for everything Carolina is contagious. She is a winner and a go-getter, and she is the perfect person to steer our new program initiatives."

Cannizzaro scored four goals with two assists in the 2013 NCAA title game to lead the Tar Heels to an upset of top-seeded, undefeated Maryland with a 13-12 win in triple overtime, the longest title game in NCAA championship history. Carolina finished the season with an 18-3 record, and Cannizzaro ended her All-Atlantic Coast Conference and All-America season with a school-record 83 points on 61 goals with 22 assists.

She earned first-team All-America honors in 2013 after picking up third-team honors as a junior in 2012. After her senior season, she became the first women's lacrosse player to be nominated for an ESPN ESPY Award. She took part in the U.S. National Team program from 2011 to 2012.

Cannizzaro was a mainstay in the Carolina Leadership Academy while enrolled at Carolina. She also was a Dean's List and ACC Academic Honor Roll student, as well as the 2013 Athletic Director's Scholar-Athlete Award winner for women's lacrosse.

Following her graduation from UNC, Cannizzaro served as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Denver in the fall of 2015 and the head coach at Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch, Colo., for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. She also worked as a technical recruiter for Apex Systems, Inc. and as a freelance writer for Inside Lacrosse magazine.

Cannizzaro graduated from UNC in 2013 with a double major in journalism and mass communication and communication studies.

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