“She was so shy,” said Shackford, W&M’s head coach since 2018. “She looked like a little boy with this short hair just as cute as could be. She fit in right away.” in 1982 was a fellow 16-year-old named Julie Cunningham (now Shackford). They attended rival high schools in Northern Virginia but were teammates on the Braddock Road Bluebelles club team. One of the first friends Ellis made after coming to the U.S. Many of those people she met at William & Mary. And, to this day, they remain a big part of her life.

“It forces one to focus on the entirety of the journey. It really makes you appreciate all the incredible people who have come through your life and been a part of this journey.” “Certainly it’s very humbling and a very proud moment in my career,” Ellis said by phone from the West Coast, where she is team president of the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) San Diego Wave FC. “It’s something you don’t anticipate or focus on, but when it comes, it’s a very humbling honor. Saturday in Frisco, Texas, Ellis will be among six inductees to the National Soccer Hall of Fame. That’s a long way from growing up in England, where there were no avenues for girls’ soccer, and even from her days on the pitch at William & Mary. national team to FIFA World Cup championships in 2015 and ’19. The only other coach to win back-to-back, men’s or women’s, was Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo in 1934 and ’38.

Nearly three decades later, Ellis offers a coaching resume that includes 248 wins in 14 seasons at the college level and leading the U.S. “It was one of those crossroads,” said Ellis. “So, I decided, why not? Let’s give it a shot.”

Hmm … stay with a job that offered career stability or take a chance in an unpredictable profession. ’16 just fine. She had a degree in English Literature from William & Mary and found steady work as a technical writer. Of course, it’s times like these that fate often intervenes.Įllis got a call one day from April Heinrichs, Maryland’s head soccer coach at the time. A second assistant coaching job had become vacant, and she wondered if Ellis would be interested. All in all, the corporate world was treating Jill Ellis ’88, L.H.D.

These truths jill