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DECEMBER 2021 27 EXCEPTIONAL UVA STUDENT-ATHLETES BETH LILLIE Graduate Student • Golf Since arriving on the Virginia women's golf scene in the fall of 2017, Beth Lillie has been a fixture in the Cavaliers' lineup and an amazingly consistent player. She will enter the spring of her final sea- son at UVA having played in 42 collegiate tournaments and in the NCAA Championships three times. Lillie has placed in the top 10 at those events on 14 occasions (33.0 percent) and finished in first place twice. Last spring, she was ninth at the NCAA Championships, earning All-America honors from the Women's Golf Coaches Association in the process. A three-time All-ACC selection, Lillie has also been consistently high performing in the classroom. Four times during her career she has been named to the WGCA All-America Scholar Team, which re- quires a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.50. Lillie used the NCAA's opportunity for student-athletes to receive an extra year of eligibility to return to Grounds this year as a gradu- ate student. In addition to pursuing a master's degree in education, she worked in the fall as an intern for the football program's video services staff. She helped to produce the weekly Thursday's Heroes videos that showed the team's outreach in the community. Lillie's college experience has been so positive that she is now considering a career in coaching instead of attempting to play pro- fessionally. "I've always been curious about coaching and thought that maybe I'd want to do it," Lillie said. "Being around all the people in my mas- ter's program has made me feel like I know enough to maybe do that someday. I've talked to my coaches about it a little, and I think it would be something I'd really enjoy. "I've had four college golf coaches, and it's given me a lot of per- spective on the impact a coach can have and how much that can really help somebody. I want to stay in golf, and going into coaching is something that makes me feel like I would be actually helping people. "That combination tipped the balance to go in that direction in- stead of maybe trying to play professionally." Lillie has enjoyed a lot of great moments on the course and is looking forward to this spring on a talented UVA team that enters the winter break ranked among the top 20 nationally. Her favorite memory as a Cavalier? That's easy. It was coming back from a nine-shot deficit over the final nine holes of the IJGA Collegiate Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico, in February 2020, shortly before the season ended prematurely due to COVID-19. "That was just crazy fun," Lillie said. "The team energy that week was the best I've ever experienced. It is something I will never forget." — Jim Daves • Photo by Matt Riley/courtesy UVA Athletics