After Carrie Urton McCaw’s freshman season at Syracuse, she had every reason to transfer. Her coach was fired during the 1994 season, and the replacement asked her to switch positions.

David McCaw, who began dating the volleyball star in 1997, is glad she stayed. Shortly after she set multiple records as SU’s setter, the two got married and later raised four children in Louisville, Kentucky.

“Her first love that she ever had in life was volleyball, but her greatest love was her kids,” David said. “She was able to help each one of her kids reach their dreams.”

On Feb. 14, McCaw and her 12-year-old daughter, Kacey, died around 11:08 a.m. in a car crash on Interstate 64 outside of St. Louis. Lesley Prather, 40, and her daughter Rhyan Prather, 12, were also in the minivan; the four were on their way to a volleyball tournament. McCaw turned 44 years old a day before the crash.

One of the most decorated volleyball players in Orange history, McCaw ranks second all-time for the most matches played and third in all-time assists. She was the “heart and the soul” of the team and played with fire, former teammate Hannah Picard said.

Sports remained in McCaw’s life after she became a mother. She supported all four of her kids wholeheartedly, no matter their differing interests, David said. One became an Eagle Scout, and others enjoyed everything from basketball and volleyball to acting and dancing. McCaw drove them wherever they needed while balancing her full-time job at a law firm, juggling those responsibilities in a “chill” and “seamless” way, Picard said. She always handled tough situations with “grace and maturity,” said Kacey Kopley, McCaw’s best friend and former roommate.

“I’m a new mom, and that is just inspiring to me,” Picard said. “You just never felt stress on her.”

Courtesy of David McCaw

In particular, McCaw had a special relationship with her daughter Kacey. The daughter and mother were like “two peas in a pod,” and Kacey was always “right on her (mom’s) left hip,” David said. Kacey was named after Kopley.

In youth volleyball, Kacey wore the number 22, partly because she was a twin, but also because it was half of 44, representing her mom’s love for Syracuse. Just like her mother, Kacey was a setter and a leader on the court. After she died last Friday, her team was lost without her leadership in a volleyball tournament.

“(Her teammates) were like Kacey…is not here to tell us what to do,” David said. “They’ve rallied around the spirit that Carrie gave to Kacey.”

The weekend before McCaw died, she reunited with a small group of Syracuse friends for a birthday celebration in Sea Girt, New Jersey.

The group had a great time “kid-free,” but McCaw FaceTimed her boys at their swim meet to see how everything went, Kopley said. Then, she FaceTimed her daughter when the group was hanging out.

“She was so involved in her kids’ lives,” Kopley said. “They confided in her, and she … would just say the right things. She was such a good mom. Such a good mom.”

Courtesy of Kacey Kopley

At the party, McCaw brought a hat and a koozie covered in ‘44’s’ for a friend’s 44th birthday gift — a reference to 44’s Tavern, a Syracuse bar where they hung out. They spent the weekend laughing and reminiscing about old times and made plans to live in the same city when they grew old.

McCaw’s friends and family described her as fun, caring, passionate, committed, confident, hard-working, loyal and encouraging. She was “the life of the party,” her husband said. She touched so many people in so many ways. There isn’t a positive word that doesn’t fit her persona, Picard said.

“When she walked into a room, walked onto a court, she lit it up,” David said.

McCaw was SU’s captain for three years, David said, and made the Athletics Director’s honor roll every semester. She was willing to “break through many walls” to make sure her team won, David said.

After switching to a completely new position her sophomore year, she developed tendinitis in her hands from practicing setting so frequently, David said.

Her favorite game came when the Orange defeated Pittsburgh on Nov. 7, 1997 in a five-set thriller in which she set two records. But it wasn’t about her, Picard said. It was about the team.

“The first thing she did was jump into my arms,” Picard said. “That moment of her leading our team to a victory that we had believed and dreamed for was probably the most incredible moment.”

Courtesy of Norm Sutaria

After she graduated, McCaw joined Rutgers as a coach and helped it make the Big East Tournament for the first time since joining the conference in 1995. McCaw even coached against her former teammates, beating SU in 1998. She’d coach for more than 20 years, mostly at the youth level.

“She instilled confidence in so many people,” David said. “They did things that nobody would have thought they had been able to do.”

As a friend, Kopley describes McCaw as her soulmate, where the two just “click like that” and “get each other.” When they learned their middle names rhymed on the first day they met, they began to go by “Carrie Ray and Kacey Faye.”

McCaw loved to sing and dance, and Kopley remembers when her roommate replaced the lyrics to “Sweet Caroline” with “sweet Kacey Faye.” Kopley remembers the times McCaw went out of her way to visit Kopley’s kids, sitting and drawing with them in their Charlotte, North Carolina home. Kopley remembers the funny poems McCaw wrote in her annual Christmas card, and the poems from college, which always ended with the line “love you whole bunches.”

Kopley called McCaw on the morning of the crash to wish her a belated happy birthday. At the end of the conversation, McCaw told Kopley that she “loved her whole bunches,” and Kopley the same. McCaw died about half-an-hour later.

“I got the gift to tell her that I loved her one last time,” Kopley said. “I don’t take it lightly. It was a gift.”

“I just hope everybody can find their Carrie Ray,” Kopley said. “When you have a friend like that, it makes going through life’s ups and downs and all of that a little bit easier.”

Published on February 19, 2020 at 11:13 pm

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