Julie Myers making an impact leading One Love Foundation

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - The former coach of UVA Women’s Lacrosse is embarking on a new journey.

Julie Myers is in her first year as CEO of the One Love Foundation, a nonprofit that was created in memory of one of her former players.

It was a day of celebration at Klockner Stadium this past Saturday, March 23rd. Julie Myers and all the players from Virginia’s 2004 national championship team were recognized on the 20th anniversary of their championship.

“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years, and when you spend time with them, it felt like yesterday,” said Myers. “When you see what they’ve done in their careers and lives and the families that they’ve generated, it was just a special weekend. You talk about a team that played for each other as a whole, nobody did it better.”

Myers also won a national title as a player at UVA in 1991, before coaching the Cavaliers to 27 straight NCAA Tournaments, which included multiple ACC Coach of the Year awards.

Last summer, after 30 years of coaching, she resigned.

“My youngest graduated from high school, I thought this was my chance to watch all of my kids play in college. I have a first year at Hampden Sydney who’s on the team, my second-year son is on the team at Virginia and plays for Lars Tiffany, and my daughter’s a grad student at Stanford. I have missed almost all of their games when they were kids and through high school. This was a chance to make sure I didn’t miss it all,” Myers said.

Myers now spends her time traveling and working for the One Love Foundation. The nonprofit was founded 14 years ago to honor Yeardley Love, a UVA student-athlete who’s life was cut short as the result of an abusive relationship.

“The heartache of not knowing what Yeardley was going through never really left me,” Myers said.

The foundation’s mission is to educate and empower young people in a movement to end relationship abuse.

“Working with public school kids, private school kids, middle school kids,” Myers said. “I want kids to understand what healthy looks like and how to have a conversation to help themselves and also to help a friend.”

UVA’s lacrosse teams wore One Love Foundation T-shirts this past weekend, as well as dedicated their games to the nonprofit.

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