About eight years ago, Andie O’Sullivan remembers her mother, Kim, turning to her and saying, “Oh my god, I love her. You have to visit the Naval Academy.”
Kim was talking about Navy women’s lacrosse coach Cindy Timchal, a speaker at a recruiting seminar O’Sullivan attended as a freshman in high school. Even then, Timchal’s words motivated O’Sullivan in a way she was already quite familiar with.
“The way she spoke about how much she cared,” O’Sullivan said, “and how much of an opportunity it was going to be, not only for lacrosse but for life afterwards.