Cindy Timchal: Winningest Coach in Division I Women’s Lacrosse History

The Art of Excellence

Cindy Timchal is the head coach for the women’s lacrosse team at the United States Naval Academy. She is the NCAA's all-time leader in career wins (535) for division I women's college lacrosse. She has won eight national championships, seven of which were won consecutively while at University of Maryland. And as coach at The Naval Academy women’s lacrosse team, she became the first coach to lead a service academy women’s team to a Final Four. She’s been named national coach of the year twice.

Some interesting insights from this episode:

• After they started winning a lot, they stopped thinking about winning and focused more on the journey.
• They treated their opponents as a partnership. If their opponents beat them, they would be teaching them a lesson of how they weren’t doing things very well.
• She called the style of play “relaxed intensity”. If you’re not tight and anxious and can just be in the moment, the intensity will rise on its own.
• She used a sports psychologist and spiritual advisor to help her team with the mental aspect of the game. It was helpful in building self-confidence, for even the most talented players have self-doubt.
• This spiritual advisor had an expression: “Slowing down is sometimes faster than speeding up.”
• Mistakes are part of sports but it’s what you do after the mistake that makes all the difference.