Ellen Heidingsfelder Manning, commonly known as Ellen Heidingsfelder, is a New Orleans lawyer by training, former multi-sport athlete, wife of Cooper Manning and mother of May, Arch and Heid Manning. Much of the public attention around her comes through the Manning football family, particularly her son Arch, but her own record includes high-level high school athletics, legal education and a long-running connection to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans.
Sacred Heart identifies her as Ellen Heidingsfelder Manning ’87 and lists her as a former volleyball, track and soccer athlete. The school inducted her into its inaugural Athletics Hall of Fame class in 2015. The University of Texas athletics biography for Arch Manning also describes Ellen as an all-state volleyball player, an all-district high jumper and a member of Sacred Heart’s first state-championship volleyball team.
Athletic career at Sacred Heart
Heidingsfelder graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in 1987. Her athletic background is unusually well documented for someone now better known through a famous sports family.
The Academy of the Sacred Heart Hall of Fame lists her participation in volleyball, track and soccer. In 1986, Sacred Heart won the first volleyball state championship in school history. A later MaxPreps feature on her daughter May Manning reports that Ellen was the most valuable player of the championship match.
Her record was formally recognized nearly three decades later. Sacred Heart included her in its first Athletics Hall of Fame class in 2015, according to the school’s contemporaneous Hall of Fame announcement.
That history also provides context for the athleticism in her immediate family. Texas’ official biography for Arch Manning specifically includes his mother’s volleyball and track achievements alongside the more familiar football credentials on his father’s side.
Education and legal background
After Sacred Heart, Heidingsfelder attended the University of Virginia. Professional legal directories record that she earned a bachelor’s degree there in 1991 before receiving a J.D. from Loyola University in New Orleans in 1994.
That sequence matters because some online profiles have reversed the two institutions. The stronger professional and biographical record supports University of Virginia for undergraduate study, followed by Loyola University for law school. A 2022 Sports Illustrated report on Arch Manning’s visit to Virginia also identifies Ellen as a University of Virginia graduate.
Her Martindale attorney profile and Lawyers.com profile record admission to practice in Louisiana in 1994, along with admissions to federal district courts in the state. Those directories list insurance defense and products liability among her practice areas.
Her present-day legal status is less certain. Some commercial directories currently label her Louisiana license inactive, while others continue to display attorney profiles without making that distinction. The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board’s status-search page defines inactive membership, but an individual official result for Heidingsfelder was not established in the available public record used for this profile. The safest description is therefore historical: she was admitted to practice in Louisiana in 1994 and has professional-directory listings associated with insurance defense and products liability.
Marriage to Cooper Manning and their children
Ellen Heidingsfelder married Cooper Manning in 1999. Cooper is the eldest son of Archie Manning and the older brother of Peyton and Eli Manning.
The couple have three children: May, Arch and Heid Manning. A September 2026 People profile of Cooper Manning’s children continues to identify Ellen as Cooper’s wife and the mother of all three.
Arch Manning has become the most publicly prominent of their children through his college football career at the University of Texas. Texas’ official roster biography directly identifies Ellen as his mother. May Manning followed a different branch of the family’s athletic tradition by playing volleyball at Sacred Heart, the same school her mother attended.
In a 2020 interview reported by MaxPreps, Ellen discussed the arrangement she and Cooper chose after they decided to have children. She said Cooper would focus on being the primary earner while she handled the household. That statement describes the family’s arrangement at that stage of their lives; it should not be read as evidence of her exact employment situation in 2026.
A continuing connection to Sacred Heart
Heidingsfelder’s relationship with the Academy of the Sacred Heart did not end with graduation.
A 2013 edition of the school’s publication, The Bridge, lists Ellen Heidingsfelder Manning ’87 as a Mothers’ Club co-president. Two years later came her induction into the school’s inaugural Athletics Hall of Fame.
The relationship remained visible in the school’s 2025–26 annual report, which lists Ellen Heidingsfelder Manning, Class of 1987, among the Sacré Coeur Founders. That gives a clearer picture of her current public footprint than many celebrity-biography pages do: her most consistently documented institutional connection remains the New Orleans school where she first established her athletic record.
Public nonprofit records also show an “Ellen H Manning” listed as an officer of the Charles E Heidingsfelder Jr Foundation for fiscal 2023, with no officer compensation reported. The record appears in ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, which reproduces data from IRS filings. Because the filing uses an abbreviated name and does not describe her duties, it is best treated as a dated organizational record rather than evidence of a broader present-day professional role.
What is Ellen Heidingsfelder doing now?
As of October 3, 2026, Heidingsfelder remains publicly connected to Sacred Heart and continues to appear in current coverage of the Manning family, especially as Arch Manning’s college football career draws attention.
What is not firmly established is a current employer, active legal caseload or definitive present-day law-practice status. That distinction matters because many online biographies simply describe her as a practicing New Orleans attorney in the present tense, even though available directory records are not fully consistent on her current license status.
Her documented profile is therefore more specific than the generic versions often repeated online. She is a former Sacred Heart multi-sport athlete and Hall of Fame inductee, a University of Virginia graduate, a Loyola-trained lawyer admitted in Louisiana in 1994, Cooper Manning’s wife and the mother of May, Arch and Heid Manning.
The through-line is not celebrity so much as continuity: athletics at Sacred Heart, professional legal training, family life and an ongoing connection to the same school where her public record began.