Attractive Options Abound for Carter

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It’s hard to say with certainty what Ella Carter will be doing at this time next year. She could be playing professionally in the National Women’s Soccer League, she could be working for Goldman Sachs, or she could be back on Grounds for a fifth season with the University of Virginia women’s soccer team.

“She’ll have tons of options,” UVA head coach Steve Swanson said, “and that’s a tribute to her and all her qualities.”

Carter, who’s in her final year in the McIntire School of Commerce, is a starting midfielder for No. 13 Virginia (4-1-2 overall, 0-1 ACC), which hosts Miami (6-1-1, 1-0) at 7 p.m. Thursday at Klöckner Stadium.

On a recent ACC Network Extra broadcast, analyst Paddy Foss noted that much of what Carter contributes on the field doesn’t show up in the box score. But Carter value to the Cavaliers can’t be overstated, said Foss, a former midfielder on the UVA men’s team.

“She cleans up a lot of stuff defensively,” Foss said, “and she connects the lines and kind of makes the midfield tick.”

Swanson agrees. Every team, he said, needs someone who “kind of brings everybody together, not just as a leader off the field, but also on the field, and Ella just links our whole team together. She’s kind of the glue of our team. She reminds me of [former UVA standouts] Alexis Theoret, or Colleen Flanagan, or Danielle Colaprico, who didn't get the credit but were very much influential and every bit the reason we've been successful.”

Carter, who was born and raised in Leesburg, had one assist as a freshman in 2023. As a sophomore, she scored two goals, and she totaled four goals and five assists last season. She has a goal and an assist this season for the Wahoos.

She noted that players at her position, the 6, do “a lot of the grunt work and the gritty work, and you're not necessarily getting on the scoreboard as much as you maybe want to. But I love my role, and I think it’s just sort of showing up for my team in that way and being gritty and winning balls, especially in the middle of the field. Being able to dictate the tempo of games, I think, is super important.

“So it's not something that necessarily fazes me that I'm not getting sort of stats and being front and center, because I just want to show up for the team and do what I can to the best of my ability, and then everyone else is able to do their job as well.”

Soccer wasn’t Carter’s only athletic pursuit as a girl. She has a brother, Daniel, and their parents threw the siblings “into taekwondo when I was 3, he was 5,” Carter said, “and we literally did it our entire childhood.”

Carter ended up earning a black belt, “and that’s my fun fact,” she said, smiling. She didn’t continue with taekwondo after elementary school, but the discipline required in martial arts “was good to learn at an early age,” Carter said. “There were a lot of life lessons, and that’s definitely helped me a lot.”

In soccer, she starred for The St. James Football Club and for Riverside High School. Even so, Swanson said, he wasn’t sure how much of an impact Carter would have as a first-year at UVA.

“But the minute she came in here, we went to Italy [for an offseason tour] and she was very good right from the get-go,” Swanson said. “Initially, we thought she had some good qualities, but she surprised us on the defensive side. She's a better ball-winner than we realized, and she reads the game really well. She can score goals, and she can use her head. There's just so many things that you appreciate more once you get her in and you start working with her every day.

“I think she's just a real mature, savvy player. She's got a really good soccer IQ. That’s another thing. Sometimes you don't see that as much when you're recruiting and you evaluate them in a game here, a game there. But you look at her now and you're like, ‘Wow, she can definitely play at the next level.’ ”

That’s a goal for Carter, but she’s also a gifted student whose concentrations in the Commerce School are finance and information technology. She gained valuable experience over the summer in an internship in Chicago with Goldman Sachs.

“I loved it,” Carter said. “It was a nine-week internship, but I was there for seven weeks because I had to get back here for preseason, which they were super accommodating of. It was my first, I would say, real corporate job, so it was good exposure to the workforce to see potentially what my future could look like beyond soccer, because obviously there is life past this.”

One of Foss’ brothers, Stephen, assisted with the Cavalier women’s team while he was in law school at UVA, and he encouraged Carter to pursue the internship at Goldman Sachs. Paddy Foss is a private wealth advisor in the company’s Chicago office

“My brother connected her to me,” Foss said, “and we talked about what I do for a living.”

Her interest piqued, Carter applied for the internship and went through a series of interviews before being chosen.

“It wasn’t like I said, ‘Here’s her résumé, she’s in,’ ” Foss said. “I know the stats are that less than 1% of applicants get internships with Goldman Sachs, so it’s more competitive than any Ivy League school.”

Carter distinguished herself during her time in Chicago, Foss said.

“She’s very smart,” he said, “and much like the way she plays soccer, she has an engine. She can go for a long time, meaning she shows up early, she stays late. She’s locked in the whole time.”

Carter said: “It was a great environment. As cliché as it sounds, I feel like soccer sets us up so well to go and work, just because you're so used to being in a competitive environment and working in teams and receiving feedback.”

Goldman Sachs offered her a full-time job that would begin after Carter graduates from UVA in May. If she chooses to play professionally in 2027, she might be able to delay her start with Goldman Sachs. She could also take advantage of the NCAA’s new five-for-five rule and play for the Hoos again next season.

Carter said she’s grateful to have multiple options, and “honestly I think it’s just following my heart and seeing what makes the most sense going forward..”

Whatever Carter decides, Foss said, “she’s a smart kid. She’s definitely going places.”

For now, Carter is focused on making the most of her fourth year at the University, on and off the soccer field. She said often sees other Riverside graduates on Grounds, and even “people I wasn't close with in high school I've become close with now that we're here, just sort of bonding over things from home," Carter said. "And, obviously, when you first get to UVA and you're a freshman, you’re just trying to meet new people and mingle and sort of get past being homesick and this huge adjustment of being in college.”

Her parents emphasized the importance of education, and Carter chose UVA for its combination of high-level soccer and elite academics.

"In terms of my overall experience, it's been nothing short of amazing," she said. "I've loved every aspect of it, even excluding the soccer part. The people are so amazing. I love the campus. It's obviously beautiful. There's so much to do, and it's just an amazing environment.”

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