During her time at Carolina, former women’s lacrosse student-athlete Nancy Heaton got an understanding of both sides of the student-athlete experience. She didn’t come to Carolina to play a sport, at least at first.

“My first three years, there was only a club team for the women,” she recalled. “We were ecstatic when the University said they would give us a sanctioned, varsity Division I team.”

Along with many of her club team members, Heaton had the opportunity to play on the first varsity Carolina Women’s Lacrosse team in her senior year of 1995-96.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Carolina,” Heaton continued. “Being part of the athletic community, having been both a ‘non-student-athlete’ and then a student-athlete my senior year, it enriched my experience even more. It gave me an even deeper sense of community and support. That last year, having that opportunity to see that next level of Carolina involvement and commitment from the staff and administration to the athletes was phenomenal.”

While she stayed semi-connected to Carolina for a few years post-graduation, Heaton moved to New York, and eventually started to lose touch with the University along with a lot of her friends and teammates.

“I was still a huge fan from afar,” she recalled. “But as I had my own kids and life got crazy, it was hard to stay super involved.”

That all changed when Women’s Lacrosse hired Kara Cannizzaro as Director of Operations and Development. One of Cannizzaro’s primary focuses was reuniting and reconnecting Carolina’s Women’s Lacrosse alumnae.

“As we were leading up to the 25th anniversary of that first team, which pretty much coincided with my 25th class reunion, Kara worked her butt off to get us all in touch again,” Heaton said. “I’m so thankful for that. It was amazing to get back in touch with old friends and teammates, and it was as if we had never skipped a beat.”

The reunion brought back so many memories for Heaton, and she was inspired to give back.

“Carolina is such a special place and I missed all of these women. They were such a great influence in my life,” she said. “I thought to myself, ’25 years is a good time to give back.’ I talked with my husband, and we were in a position to make an impactful gift.”

That “impactful” gift was two-fold – as Heaton and her husband not only made a donation through The Rams Club to support the FORevHER Tar Heels initiative and scholarships, but also in the future with a contribution from her estate.

“I wanted the philosophy of making an impact now as well as in the future,” she said. “I thought it was really important to show that ‘Hey, I believe in Carolina.’ I think it’s important to give now but also to plan for the future and indicate that Carolina will always be important to me.”