When North Carolina’s coaches looked at the metrics, they assumed the energy tracking monitor was broken.
No one can run that hard for that long. No one can sustain that kind of output.
But the equipment was not bad. It was working perfectly fine.
So what was the explanation?
Exactly what they thought it would be.
Chloe Humphrey.
“It measures distance, it measures high-speed running,” Tar Heels coach Jenny Levy said. “So we typically see in our games that about 12 to 15% of your races were about high-speed running. It was usually about 12%. In practice, Chloe was hitting like 18 to 20% of her activities were high-speed running, which is really demanding. Accel, decel and sprint. So her distances were above all else. Her high-speed races were double that of everyone else. Like, we were like, ‘World. ‘What’s going on?’ And we didn’t even see it. And we have a lot of great players, [but] We hadn’t seen that work rate before. He’s got a different kind of motor.”
A lot is different with Chloe Humphrey. His skill set. His vision. His competitiveness. For Levy, who has been the Tar Heels head coach since the program’s inception in 1994, and who has won four national titles in the last nine years, it all boils down to a conclusion.
She could be for Humphrey women’s lacrosse what some other Tar Heels have been for their sports.
What is Erin Mattson like in hockey?
What is Mia Hamm to women’s football?
And yes, what Michael Jordan is to basketball.
In other words, the greatest of all time. Maybe even a goat.
“Have you ever seen anyone like Chloe?” Levy was asked for.
“No,” she said. “Not a chance.”
And Levi has seen them all.
Last season, as a redshirt freshman, Humphrey led the Tar Heels to the national title. They went 22–0, winning every game except two – both against Boston College – by at least three goals. Humphrey scored a record 90 goals as a freshman last year and became the first freshman – male or female – to win the Tewaaraton Trophy, which has been awarded to the nation’s top players since 2001. He outdid himself this year with 92 goals, as the Tar Heels begin their title defense this weekend as the No. 2 overall seed. They will play the winner of Clemson-Davidson in the national quarterfinals on Sunday.
What made things even more special last year was who Humphrey was playing with. Because even though she was hailed as the country’s top player, she wasn’t the leading scorer on her team — or even in her family. Her 118 points were three less than the total scored by a teammate who transferred from Stanford in 2024, a graduate student named Ashley Humphrey, Chloe’s older sister.
Together, Chloe and Ashley were almost impossible to defend against. Ashley fed Clough, who scored the home goal. Ninety assists for Ashley, 90 goals for Chloe. Twenty-eight assists for Chloe, 31 goals for Ashley.
At the same time, there was another graduate student playing for the Tar Heels, who had transferred back to North Carolina after a year at USC: Nicole Humphrey, the eldest of the three Humphrey sisters. Even as she battled some injuries, Nicole played 18 games and scored six goals.
“Literally running out on the field in a Carolina jersey and with my two sisters, I really felt like living my dream,” Chloe said.
For the Tar Heels’ opponents, that dream turned into a recurring nightmare.
For Chloe, this season – unlike any freshman season before – was even more remarkable because it came nearly two years after her last competitive game, when she was a senior at Darien High School in Connecticut.
When she was a true freshman, in February 2024, Humphrey suffered a stress injury in her left foot. Levi had seen such injuries before and quickly learned how debilitating they could be.
“We had a player in the past who had an avicular injury because of surgery,” says Levy. “It took her about a year and a half to get back, and she’s struggled with it her entire career. So for Chloe, we were like you don’t want to mess with this, this is going to keep you out for 8 to 9 months, and you’re not allowed to do anything at that level until we clear you.”
Sitting out an entire season into the fall was a serious challenge for an athlete who doesn’t have an off switch.
“To many people, discipline means getting up early, waking up early, and exercising, but for me, discipline means not touching my stick, not running,” says Chloe. “It was just relaxing and doing the things that I needed to do, even if they weren’t the things that I wanted to do. I wanted to run 24/7 and be on the wall 24/7. So to be told that I wasn’t able to do that, I, again, found a different role on the team. I became a cheerleader and expected to be the light in someone else’s day. I think stepping up and being on the sideline was definitely very beneficial and having that perspective “Being on the sidelines and seeing the interactions with guys, because, you know, I just think about being on the sidelines… I’ve got a whole different perspective on the game and the game.”
All that pent-up energy is released, but it never goes away.
Teammate Addison Pattillo, the Tar Heels’ second-leading scorer this season, grew up a few towns over from Darien in Wilton, Connecticut, and has watched Humphrey’s talent up close for years.
“She has a lot of grit, and she’ll do anything to win games,” Pattillo says, “and she’s constantly moving forward.” If you look at her mileage post-game, she’s covered a lot of ground, and it’s just a testament to how hard she works on and off the field.
Off the field, Humphrey has been working not only on her game, but also on her social media presence. It is a core part of her identity, and she hopes to be able to pursue a career as an influencer. It’s clear that no matter how far she goes, she’ll take her favorite sport with her. The mission is to gain followers not only for her account, but for lacrosse as well.
goat? Game face? Humphrey says bring it.
“I love it,” she says. “I love that challenge. And I don’t feel it as pressure. It’s a privilege to be able to elevate the sport. And especially now the sport is in the Olympics, there will be a lot more eyes on the sport, which is absolutely incredible. And it’s getting the attention it deserves.”
