By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com
From her home near Portsmouth on England’s southern coast, then five-year-old Jillian Anne Ellis was completely unaware as to how much a new American law called Title IX would eventually affect her life. At that time in 1972, all she knew was that she wasn’t getting the same opportunity to play organized sports as her older brother, Paul.
Jill’s life changed dramatically in 1981 when her father, John, was offered the chance to move his family across the Atlantic and establish a soccer academy in the United States.
“I was 15 and about to enter my final year of school,” Ellis remembered. “My parents said, ‘Well, do you want to come with us to the States or would you rather stay and finish up here?’ I said, ‘Heck, I’m coming.’ I was very excited to make the move.”
Attending Fairfax, Virginia’s Robinson Secondary School, Jill finally got the opportunity to play the sport that her father taught.
“When I first came over, I tried out for soccer and absolutely fell in love with it,” she said. “You have to remember that soccer is the sport that every sports fan in Europe follows. It was neat for me suddenly going from being a fan to actually be a player.”
Ellis excelled as a high school athlete and received an invitation to play soccer for the College of William & Mary, an institution founded in 1693 that was named after former English royalty. Receiving no financial aid until her senior season, it was strictly an opportunity to receive an education in her majors of English Literature and Composition.
Performing on the soccer pitch for the Tribe from 1984-87, Jill scored 32 career goals. As a senior, she was awarded third-team NSAA All-America honors.
The ’80s were a time when women’s collegiate sport was still sprouting, and female athletes received few frills beyond the ability to compete.
“We wore men’s uniforms and had to buy our own cleats,” Ellis recalled. “For our pregame meals, we were lucky if we went to McDonald’s. It was on the very forefront of the evolution for women’s soccer in college sports. However, there was a certain robustness and comradery of the athletes back then. You weren’t playing for a scholarship; you were playing because you loved it. There wasn’t any other motivation other than playing for the love of the sport.
“One of the things that really stood out for me was that there were no female coaches,” Ellis remembered. “I mean zero. When I was playing, I don’t recall ever competing against or having a female coach. In my senior year, we finally had a female assistant coach (April Heinrichs). It was literally the first time that I’ d ever been coached by a female. The landscape was just barren in terms of coaching opportunities for women. Interestingly enough, I kind of fought against a coaching career initially. Soccer was more of a vehicle for me to get my education.”
Soon came a career-changing moment for Ellis.
“I was working as a writer in North Carolina for a large tech company when April called me and offered me a coaching job,” she said. “For a young person, I was making decent money. I had an apartment, I had heath care, I had a car. Still, I was really struggling with what I was going to do with my life. I remember calling my father and telling him that I’d been offered this coaching job for $6,000 a year. He was excited … my mother not so much. But, for me, it was a moment of picking passion over paycheck. I took a leap of faith, jumped in with both feet, and never looked back because I absolutely loved it.”
After three years as an assistant at Maryland, one at Virginia, and three more at North Carolina State, Ellis received an inquiry in the winter of 1997 from the University of Illinois about his head coaching position.
“I actually went home to Charlotteville to see my parents for the weekend,” she remembered. “Dad left me a message that said Dr. (Karol) Kahrs had called from the University of Illinois. Full disclosure, I got out a map. There was no Google back then. I wanted to learn exactly where the school was and what kind of a school it was. I called Dr. Kahrs back. She said, ‘We’d love to talk with you about our head coaching position and bring you out.’ I went for a visit and I remember it was freezing cold. I met with Karol and I met with Ron, got to see what their plans were, and I really believed in their vision. The one daunting thing was that I had to put a team on the field in only about four or five months after I was hired. Looking back, had I been more thoughtful and more conservative, I probably should have thought that through. Ultimately, I liked what Ron and Karol pitched to me in terms of what we could build and I said ‘Yeah, let’s do this.'”
Ellis hit the ground running.
“I did a quick study and found out that there was a club team on campus,” she said. “My plan was to get there as fast as I could and find out if there were some recruits who were still undecided. Once I got to campus, we held open tryouts with the club team. I was pleased with the core group. I looked for a certain level of athleticism and to identify those women who could play specific positions. The players were bright, resilient, passionate, and so appreciative of this opportunity. They went to the University of Illinois for the academics and, all of a sudden, they get to play a varsity sport with the inaugural team. That opportunity wasn’t lost on them.”
Ellis recalled the message to his players in one of the first meetings.
“I remember saying to the players, ‘Listen, I’m going to be patient but I’m not going to lower my expectations,'” she said. “It was a message of we’re going to be fit and we’re going to be an aggressive team in terms of how we play. We’re going to have tremendous work ethic and we’re going to have each other’s backs. I can’t remember how many games we won that first year, but we celebrated the highs big time. It really was a great foundation on which to build … great people with great character.”
A sense of excitement abounded as the Illini approached their very first game on Sept. 5, 1997, against Loyola.
“I remember the players getting their uniforms and just being so excited,” Ellis said. “It kind of took me back to when I made my first team at (age) 15. Your jersey, when you make a team, is such a prized possession. Sure, there was a little bit of anticipation and anxiety, but one of the things that they bought into was ‘We’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose.’ So we took the field with a very attacking mindset.”
The Illini opened with victories in their first four games, but then lost the next seven in a row. That set the stage for a Big Ten battle in mid-October against Northwestern, a match in which the Illini prevailed by a score of 3-2 in double overtime. It was a particularly memorable moment in that inaugural season.
“That was definitely a dog-pile game,” she said. “As a coach, you’re just so happy for the players because you know (the effort) they’d put into the game.”
In May of 2022, 24 years after the eventual two-time World Cup Championship coach of Team USA departed Champaign-Urbana for a job at UCLA, Ellis received an invitation to speak at the U of I’s Commencement ceremony.
“It was serendipity,” she said. “It was getting back to where it had all begun and an appreciation of coming back to where I’d cut my teeth and planted my feet in the coaching ranks in terms of making it my profession. It was a huge honor. I was so privileged and proud to come back during the celebration of Title IX’s 50th anniversary. It was an acknowledgment and a tip of the hat to the University for adding this sport and continuing to grow the game of women’s football. Coming to America was an absolute life-changing moment for me. Growing up in England, never would I have dreamed of having a career in sports.”