Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
When the North Carolina coaches looked at the metrics, they assumed the energy tracking monitor was broken.
No one can run so fast for so long. No one can sustain such output.
But the device was not faulty. It was working perfectly.
So what was the explanation?
It might just be what they thought.
Chloe Humphrey.
“It measures distance, it measures high-speed running,” Tar Heels coach Jenny Levy said. “So what we usually see in our games is about 12 to 15% of your run is about high-speed running. It was usually about 12%. In practice, Chloe was hitting like 18 to 20% of her speed in high-speed running, which is really demanding. Accel, decel and sprint. So her distance was like everybody else, we were running twice as much as everybody else. Running in the world?’ And we just haven’t seen it. And we have a lot of great players, (but) we haven’t seen that work rate before. He has a different kind of motor.”
With Chloe Humphrey, there are many things that stand out. His skill set. his vision His competition. 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 adds up to a conclusion.
That Humphrey women’s lacrosse could be what happened to a few other Tar Heels in their sport.
Erin Mattson What is fielding hockey?
What Mia Hamm is to women’s football.
And yes, Michael Jordan does basketball.
In other words, an all-time great. Maybe even a goat.
“Have you ever seen anyone like Chloe?” Levi was asked.
“No,” she said. “No chance.”
And Levi saw them all.
Last season, as a redshirt freshman, Humphrey led the Tar Heels to a national title. They went 22-0, winning every game except two — both against Boston College — by at least three goals. Humphrey scored a new-record 90 goals last year en route to becoming the first freshman – male or female – to win the Tewaraton Trophy, which has been presented to the nation’s top players since 2001. He has outdone 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.
Making things even more special last year was who Humphrey was playing with. Because while he may be revered as the nation’s top player, he wasn’t the top scorer on his own team — or even in his own family. Chloe’s older sister, Ashley Humphrey, a graduate student who transferred from Stanford in 2024, had 118 points, three fewer than her teammate’s total.
Together, Chloe and Ashley were impossible to defend against. Ashley would feed Clough, who would hammer home the goal. Ninety assists for Ashley, 90 goals for Chloe. 28 assists for Chloe, 31 goals for Ashley.
At the same time, there was another grad student playing for the Tar Heels, who had returned to North Carolina after a year at USC: Nicole Humphrey, the oldest of the three Humphrey sisters. Even when he was dealing with some injuries, Nicol played 18 games and scored six goals.
“Literally running out onto the field in a Carolina jersey and with my two sisters, I was really living my dream,” Chloe said.
For the Tar Heels’ opponents, that dream turned into a recurring nightmare.
For Chloe, the season — a freshman season unlike any 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.
While he was a true freshman, in February 2024, Humphrey suffered a stress injury to his left leg. Levi had seen injuries like this before and immediately knew how debilitating they could be.
“We’ve had a player in the past who had an avicularis injury through surgery,” Levy said. “It took her about a year and a half to come back, and she’s battled it for the rest of her career. So for Chloe, we were like you don’t want to mess with it, it’s going to keep you out for 8 to 9 months, and you’re not allowed to do anything on that leg until we clear you.”
Sitting out for the entire season and fall was a serious challenge for an athlete who didn’t have an off switch.
“A lot of people describe discipline as waking up early and going to work early, but for me discipline is not touching my stick, not running,” says Chloe. “It was just resting and doing what I needed to do even though it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to run 24/7 and be on the wall 24/7. So you could say I couldn’t do that, I, again, had a different role on the team. I became a cheerleader and hoped that I could be someone else, these days I was able to become very comfortable. Being up front and being on the sidelines and having that perspective and being on the sidelines with people. Seeing the interaction because, you know, I feel like just being on the sidelines… gave me a whole different perspective on the sport and the game.”
All that pent-up energy is released, but it never seems to dissipate.
Teammate Addison Pattillo, the Tar Heels’ second-leading scorer this season, grew up a few towns over from Darin in Wilton, Connecticut, and has seen Humphrey’s talent for years.
“He has a lot of toughness, and he’ll do whatever it takes to win a game,” Pattillo said, “and he’s constantly moving. If you look at his mileage after a game, he’s covered so much ground, and it’s a testament to how hard he works on and off the field.”
Off the field, Humphrey is working on not only his game, but his social media presence. It’s a core part of her identity, and she hopes to pursue a career as an influencer. What’s clear is that wherever he goes, he’ll take the game he loves along for the ride. The mission is to gain followers not only on his account, but for lacrosse.
Goat? Game face? Bring it on, Humphrey said.
“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 promote the sport. And especially now that the sport is in the Olympics, the sport is getting a lot more attention, which is absolutely incredible. And it’s finally getting the attention it deserves.”
