From 2002-2007, Jill was the head softball coach at Morehead State. At the same time, Becky was in her first year as a GA coaching rugby at Eastern Illinois. Becky had attended several softball games vs Morehead State and had no idea she was watching the game coached by her future wife.

Jill was also roommates at that time with a tennis player who was also Becky’s archnemesis within the OVC conference! It would be over a decade later that they would meet in 2013 through a mutual friend. Only when they became friends would they come to find out that they had been in such proximity to one another several times throughout their lives.

In June of 2014, Becky drove out to Missouri to drop off her father at his campground property and drove to Colorado to see some friends. Jill was attending a wedding in Aruba and flying back through Denver. They met up in Colorado and hung out for a few days to hike and explore. They drove back from Colorado to Connecticut together and if you can survive a 27-hour car ride across the country with a dog

In 2016 on July 4th Becky staged an engagement surprise at the Nomad Movie Theater in Boulder CO. Jill was on her usual recruiting trip for scouting with the rest of the college softball coaching community. Jill was invited to the theater to support Becky in what she thought was a movie release of Becky’s Rugby Documentary. When she arrived at the theater and saw family and friends she was still unaware that this was an engagement party. Feel free to watch the video below that tells the rest of the story.

After a lengthy, exhausting bout with fertility treatments from 2016-2017, Jill and Becky began the process of becoming licensed with the state of CT to serve as a foster home. After initially being denied, Becky’s team wrote a character letter to the state where the licensing team then showed up to Jill and Becky’s house apologizing for the behavior of the licensing worker and approving their application. On June 9, 2019, less than 30 days after purchasing their new home, DCF called for a 3-day-old little girl who needed a resource. Jill and Becky visited Skylar in the hospital during her 11-day stay in the NICU. Just over a year later, on June 24, 2020, at the height of the pandemic, another surprise arrived when Skylar’s sister Charleigh was born and DCF called Jill and Becky for placement.

On November 13th, 2023, 5 years after being licensed and after years of court proceedings, physical therapy, medical appts, legal letdowns, and small triumphs, Skylar and Charleigh were legally given the last names of Carlson-Karwoski.

Q + A coming soon!