Wurzburger, named the No. 1 recruit in her class by Inside Lacrosse, personally called Syracuse coach Gary Gait to inform him of her decision to reopen her recruitment. Her commitment in 2016 came before the NCAA’s April 2017 passage of lacrosse-specific recruiting legislation eliminating contact with prospects before Sept. 1 of their junior year.
“You know how hard of a call that was for a child of her age? Think about that,” McClain says. “The maturity, the confidence to get on the phone with one of the greatest coaches in the women’s game and probably the best men’s lacrosse player to ever play the game.”
Wurzburger considered Boston College, Maryland and North Carolina before informing Tar Heels coach Jenny Levy — also the head coach of the U.S. women’s senior team — of her decision to take her talents to Chapel Hill.
“It’s great to have such a great energy from her and passion for the game,” Wurzburger says. “I really do believe we have a similar connection. Coach Levy does so much for the sport. Whenever I talk to her, she tells me what she’s doing trying to spread it and maybe eventually get it to the Olympics. It’s taking those big steps.”
On a smaller scale, Wurzburger hopes to do the same for lacrosse in Florida. When she and her dad play catch at the local park where the Delray Rocks youth football team practices, one of the boys always comes over to say hi and ask about a sport that she has known for her entire life.
“It’s a special moment when a kid doesn’t even know what the sport is and starts to really get into it,” she says. “To have that grow, it’s such an easy thing. Just put that stick in their hands.”
In January 2012, current U.S. U19 coach Kelly Amonte Hiller did just that for Wurzburger.
Amonte Hiller’s Northwestern team, then the reigning NCAA champion, was competing against Team USA in the Champion Challenge, a US Lacrosse event at ESPN Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
When Rob Wurzburger and McClain brought their daughters, Caitlyn and Taylor, to watch the Wildcats practice, Amonte Hiller, a three-time U.S. World Cup team player, immediately walked over to say hello and welcomed the girls to play catch with them.
“Here’s America’s great player. She gets it,” Rob Wurzburger says. “That’s a lasting impression. [Now] she’s coaching USA and Caitlyn’s on the training team. Obviously, they’ve both done a tremendous job continuing their careers as a player and as a coach.”
When Wurzburger showed up for U.S. U19 team tryouts at US Lacrosse last August in Sparks, Md., Amonte Hiller saw the same resolve that has tested the durability of those hurricane-proof windows in Delray Beach.
“It [was] written all over her face: ‘I’m making this team,’” Amonte Hiller says. “She really established her spot on that first cut right off the bat. It was like, ‘Wow.”
Wurzburger wows everyone who watches.
“She’s definitely an icon,” McClain says, before walking back his comment. “I guess that’s too big of a word? [She’s] probably that icon for Florida lacrosse.”
“Ten years from now,” McClain continues, “Caitlyn will be 26 years old, and she’ll be in the prime of physicality. This kid might be on that Olympic team when you start thinking about it. She’ll be an Olympian. There’s not even a hesitation in my inner soul here that the kid’s going to make it.”
McClain pauses and chuckles.
“You almost don’t want to talk about it, because you don’t want to jinx it.”