Oral history conducted for the 100 Years of Coeducation commemoration. Jill Ellis arrived at William & Mary in 1984. During her time at William & Mary, she played women’s soccer, wrote for the Flat Hat, and participated in the College Reading Program. She was the first in her family to attend university. After graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, she was offered a coaching job at NC State and simultaneously pursued her Master of Arts in Technical Writing. After a brief stint in the business world, she set her sights on coaching, serving as head coach of the UCLA women’s soccer team before moving into her current position as head coach of the Women’s National Team of the U.S. Soccer Federation. In her interview, Ellis calls William & Mary "the complete package" having offered her both an opportunity to play soccer and an excellent academic experience. Though she recalls the campus as being very open in terms of rules and regulations compared to the 1960s and prior, in terms of discussion of sexuality, "it was certainly not an environment where it was open...back then it was still very much a taboo topic." Though this resulted in some isolating experiences for Ellis, she maintains that, "in terms of friendships, and lessons I've learned, and growing and becoming the person I am, it just gave me a great platform...I know it shaped me in so many ways it's probably hard to articulate."