Jill Miller enters her third season on the William and Mary coaching staff in 2013-14, and her second as the head women’s cross country coach. In addition to working with the women’s distance and middle-distance runners, Miller’s duties include serving as the Tribe’s recruiting coordinator. In 2012-13, Miller was named the co-W&M Coach of the Year by the Alumni Association, and the CAA Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year.
Miller’s first season as the head of the women’s program was a smashing success, as the Tribe won both the cross country and track and field CAA titles, and advanced to the NCAA cross country championships for the first time since 2005. Key to the team’s success was the development of two All-American runners, Elaina Balouris and Emily Stites. Balouris was named the CAA Athlete of the Year in both cross country and track and field, and was named All-American in both the fall and the spring. The individual champion at the CAA cross country meet, she broke the W&M course record with her championship run, and went on to place 13th at the NCAA championships. After earning All-East honors indoors once again, Balouris set school records in both the 5,000m and 10,000m outdoors, and finished second at the CAA meet in the 1,500m and 5,000m before placing 10th in the 10,000m at the NCAA outdoor championships.
Stites had one of the most remarkable years for a Tribe freshman in any sport, as she came out of nowhere to become a two-time All-American and win two national titles. Coming into the fall, she was unsure if she could even run on the varsity, but by November she was 26th at the NCAA Championships, and named the CAA Rookie of the Year. Over the winter months, she continued her dominance in cross country by leading Team USA at the Great Edinburgh XC Challenge, and then won the USAT&F Junior National Championships in February. That win earned her a spot at the World Cross Country Championships in Poland, where she was voted the captain of the U.S. junior women’s team. While all that was going on, Stites also found time to break the Tribe freshman records in the mile, 3,000m, and 5,000m, the latter with the world’s fastest time for a junior woman indoors in 2013. Outdoors, Stites ran 15:45 for the 5,000m at Mt. SAC, the fifth-fastest U.S. junior time ever, and ranked in the top 20 in the world junior ranks in both the 5,000m and 10,000m. She won the CAA title at 10,000m, and finished 10th at the NCAA 5,000m championships before winning her second USAT&F junior title by over 45 seconds in the 5,000m. She was named CAA Rookie of the Year in track as well.
In addition to those two, the Tribe’s year was characterized by breakout performances across the board. Of the Tribe’s returning runners in 2013-14, all five who ran the 10,000m in 2013 ran career-bests, as did nine of 10 in the 1,5000m, 10 of 13 in the 3,000m, and eight of 11 in the 5,000m. The roster includes five sub-17 5,000m runners, and five sub-10 3,000m runners as well. At the CAA Championships, Meghan McGovern ran a conference-record to win the 5,000m, with the Tribe also taking the 10,000m and having two scorers in the 3,000m steeplechase despite every runner trying the event for the first time. Indoors, Dylan Hassett pulled off the difficult double of earning All-East honors in both the 3,000m and the 5,000m on back-to-back nights. During the winter, McGovern also earned her stars and stripes as a member of Team USA at the NACAC Junior Cross Country Championships, and placed eighth at the USAT&F Junior National Cross Country Championships.
In 2011-12, Miller’s first year with the Tribe, she assisted with the development of Balouris into an All-American runner. Balouris was the first alternate to the NCAA cross country meet in the fall, and during the spring, moved up to the 10,000m for the first time. In her debut in the event, she missed the school record by only a second, and went on to win the CAA title, her first, by over a minute. She went on to earn a spot at the NCAA Championships, where she finished 19th in her first national competition.
Prior to joining the Tribe, Miller spent three years at Brown University, including serving as the head women's cross country coach during the 2010-11 school year. During her time with the Bears Miller coached or helped coach three NCAA outdoor qualifiers in both 2010 and 2011, as well as lead athletes to three school records and 23 all-time top-10 performances. Among her outstanding athletes was Ariel Wright, Brown's first 5,000m Ivy league champion since 1984, as well as Heidi Caldwell, the ECAC 5,000m runner-up in 2011. Miller was also responsible for founding and organizing the Northeast Cross Country Camp, Brown's first-ever summer running camp.
Miller graduated cum laude from Wake Forest in 2005 with dual degrees in psychology and political science. While a student, she helped Wake qualify to four consecutive NCAA Cross Country Championships, including a ninth-place finish and the school's first ACC title in 2002. On the track, she was runner-up at 3,000m at the 2002 USAT&F Junior Championships, and finished 10th at 5,000m NCAA Indoor Championships in 2003 to earn All-American honors.
