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Princeton University Athletics
Best Friends For 22 Years, Shackford And Ellis Chase NCAA Championship From Opposite Benches
November 28, 2004 | Women's Soccer
Nov. 28, 2004
They met in Northern Virginia in 1982, one a transplanted New Yorker, the other a shy British girl new to this country. They had soccer in common, and it has forged a bond between the two that started on a club team and will endure forever.
How ironic that on the biggest day of Princeton women's soccer coach Julie Shackford's professional career, the coach on the other bench will happen to be Jillian Ellis, the head coach of the UCLA Bruins and Shackford's best friend of the last 22 years.
Shackford and Ellis square off Friday as Princeton (19-2) meets UCLA (17-6) in the first game (2 p.m., ESPN2) of the NCAA Final Four in Cary, N.C. The other national semifinal matches Notre Dame (23-1-1) who will meet Santa Clara (18-4-2) in the second game; the winners meet Sunday at 1 for the championship.
"They are both delightful young women, and I could not be more proud of them," says John Daly, the head coach of William & Mary who coached both Shackford and Ellis while the two played for the Tribe. "They were both tremendous players. I will be at the game, wearing light blue on one arm and orange and black on the other." Ellis is making her third Final Four appearance with the Bruins, who along with Notre Dame and Santa Clara are perennial Top 10 programs. The new kids in town will be Princeton, who is making the first Final Four appearance by an Ivy League school.
"I actually feel good about going against her," Ellis says. "We both want our own teams to win of course, but we're so happy for each other's success. It's unbelievable what she's done at Princeton. She built that whole program. I'm super-thrilled that she's gotten there."
The friendship between the two is deep and longstanding. Ellis, for instance, is the godmother of one of Shackford's twins, Cameron, whose middle name is Jill.
"She's my best friend," Ellis says. "I talk to her every week. When I have recruits in my office, I tell them that long I've forgotten the scores of the games or any details from on the field, I have these two amazing friends for the rest of my life."
The third friend, Megan McCarthy, was also a member of the club team that Ellis joined when she arrived in this country in 1982. Together, the three led their team - the Braddock Road Blue Belles - to the 1984 club national championship.
They were high school rivals, with Shackford at Lake Braddock and McCarthy and Ellis at Robinson. When it came time for college, it was Shackford who convinced her club teammates to join her at William & Mary.
"I was very intimidated by Julie," Ellis says. "She was a tall, imposing blonde. I'm shy. We struck up a friendship, and it was because of Julie that I ended up playing college soccer. I had no concept about college or education. It was really my friendship with Julie and Megan that led me first to college athletics and ultimately to college coaching."
The three led William & Mary to four NCAA tournament appearances, and all three would be named All-America before graduating in 1988. McCarthy was national Player of the Year.
"Neither one of us was going to get into coaching," says Shackford. "I was going to go to law school. She was an English major and a really great writer. I thought she was going to get into writing. Her father was a soccer coach who ran camps and club programs in the area, and we had worked with him. I think we both just fell into coaching."
Shackford became a head coach immediately, taking over at Division III Carnegie-Mellon when it became a varsity program. She then came to Princeton in 1995, inheriting a program that had been 20 games under .500 for the seven years prior to that and a program that had not finished in the top half of the Ivy League standings for the previous five years.
Under Shackford's direction, Princeton would become an annual Ivy League contender and NCAA participant. She led her team to the 1999 NCAA tournament, ending a 16-year drought for Princeton, and the Tigers have been back every year since. There have also been Ivy League championships in four of the last five years. Her record at Princeton is 117-51-10; her overall record is 159-72-16.
This has been her best season, as the Tigers have set 21 school records. No Ivy League team has ever won more games in a season than Princeton's 19 this year, and Princeton has outscored its opponents 58-9. The 58 goals are the most in school history. The Tigers entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 7 seed, and wins over Central Connecticut, Villanova, Boston College and Washington have advanced Princeton to the Final Four.
Ellis was an assistant coach at Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina State and then spent two years as head coach at Illinois before taking over at UCLA. Her record with the Bruins is 109-24-5, and she is 128-42-5 overall.
The Bruins this year have defeated Pepperdine, San Diego, Duke and Ohio State to reach the Final Four.
"Jill's father coached, and it was apparent that coaching was in her genes," Daly says. "She was one of the most skillful players of her day. Julie was our attacking midfielder, and her athleticism and pure soccer skill often hid the fact that she had a very good tactical mind. That is now apparent with all I have heard about her squad this year."
The two have coached against each other once before, during a 2001 regular season game in Los Angeles that UCLA won 2-0. This week's game is on the biggest stage in the collegiate women's game.
"I'm really looking forward to it," Shackford says. "I don't get to see her a lot. We'll get to spend time together, talk soccer, catch up. That'll be great. We love to compete, and it'll be fun to compete against her."
One will advance to the championship game; the other will root hard for her friend come Sunday.
That's what best friends do.
- by Jerry Price