In Her Wake: Five Questions with Jill Snyder-Kerr
3/15/2024 10:45:00 AM | Track and Field
Snyder-Kerr looks back on her career and gives a look into her life after Wake Forest.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Jill Snyder-Kerr won four ACC championships and earned seven All-ACC awards as part of the Wake Forest Track & Field team, competing in the Mile, the 800-meter and the distance medley relay. She earned All-American honors in both the mile and the distance medley relay in 2001, and was named the Wake Forest Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1998-99.
She recently added to her list of accolades by being inducted in the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame. Deacon Sports Xtra chatted with Synder-Kerr for this Five Questions feature.
What is life like for you in Boston these days?
Snyder-Kerr: "I have six kids. I have five girls, five daughters and one son. So we're in high school and elementary school right now. I work full-time as a teacher and I coach three varsity sports at my daughter's high school, different schools than the one I work at. So I'm really busy and my husband and I have started a track club for elite level runners, boys and girls, and so it's fun. So we're busy and we try to balance. I try to balance work and family life and yeah, I'm just having a great time, working hard, but having fun."
What do you teach?
Snyder-Kerr: "So right now I'm teaching fifth grade, so I teach everything that the fifth graders learn, and next year I'm helping our school expand to a middle school. So I'll be dean of girls and teaching seventh grade. So I'm using my education degree and this is my first time teaching elementary school. I've always taught middle school and high school, so it's a fun new challenge."
How often do you reflect about the time between your freshman, sophomore seasons when you're trying to figure out if Wake was actually the right place for you and how things might've been different had you made another choice?
Synder-Kerr: "That was a very, very difficult time. And so my goals as a high school graduate going into college were really high. So I had dreams of being a national champion. I had dreams of making the Olympic team, and so as I struggled through those injuries, that really did affect the rest of my career. That was hard. I couldn't help but think about what it would have been like if I was somewhere else, but I did a lot of soul searching, and so I had opportunities and I chose to stick with Wake Forest because I really believed it was where I belonged and where God wanted me to be."
What was one of the more challenging aspects of excelling at the highest level on the field?
Synder-Kerr: "It was really hard the way our schedule was set with the ACC championships in April and the National Championships in June — that's a really long time to have championships for a track and field athlete. You have a certain amount of time with your training where you can sustain that highest level of performance. And so I was always exhausted by the time I got to the national championships. I mean, just flat out exhausted. And as an athlete, I was really hard on myself and I was like, what's wrong with me? Why do I feel like this now that I know more as a coach and I understand more about training theory? I look back and I realize I was running out of gas. That wasn't something that I could really change. That was just, those are the circumstances. I'm really happy with the way it worked out."
What about your Wake Forest experience has continued to help you as you move forward in your life and career?
Synder-Kerr: "Even though I did not completely reach those lofty goals that I had, I was really grateful because those experiences with the setbacks and learning how to be more of an adult and to speak up for myself when I needed to and to advocate for myself and to take ownership of those things really prepared me for ultimately where my life would go, which was to be a working mother of a large family and to work as an educator and to work as a coach and to impact other people's lives.
"And so those experiences inform my decisions that I make every day. And I'm really grateful for them because, I mean, the national title would've been really nice, but making the Olympics would've been great, but I'm not sure that I would be a better person with those titles. And so I'm really, really happy with where my life is, and I'm really grateful for those experiences because ultimately when I looked for it, Wake Forest gave me the support that I needed."
She recently added to her list of accolades by being inducted in the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame. Deacon Sports Xtra chatted with Synder-Kerr for this Five Questions feature.
What is life like for you in Boston these days?
Snyder-Kerr: "I have six kids. I have five girls, five daughters and one son. So we're in high school and elementary school right now. I work full-time as a teacher and I coach three varsity sports at my daughter's high school, different schools than the one I work at. So I'm really busy and my husband and I have started a track club for elite level runners, boys and girls, and so it's fun. So we're busy and we try to balance. I try to balance work and family life and yeah, I'm just having a great time, working hard, but having fun."
What do you teach?
Snyder-Kerr: "So right now I'm teaching fifth grade, so I teach everything that the fifth graders learn, and next year I'm helping our school expand to a middle school. So I'll be dean of girls and teaching seventh grade. So I'm using my education degree and this is my first time teaching elementary school. I've always taught middle school and high school, so it's a fun new challenge."
How often do you reflect about the time between your freshman, sophomore seasons when you're trying to figure out if Wake was actually the right place for you and how things might've been different had you made another choice?
Synder-Kerr: "That was a very, very difficult time. And so my goals as a high school graduate going into college were really high. So I had dreams of being a national champion. I had dreams of making the Olympic team, and so as I struggled through those injuries, that really did affect the rest of my career. That was hard. I couldn't help but think about what it would have been like if I was somewhere else, but I did a lot of soul searching, and so I had opportunities and I chose to stick with Wake Forest because I really believed it was where I belonged and where God wanted me to be."
What was one of the more challenging aspects of excelling at the highest level on the field?
Synder-Kerr: "It was really hard the way our schedule was set with the ACC championships in April and the National Championships in June — that's a really long time to have championships for a track and field athlete. You have a certain amount of time with your training where you can sustain that highest level of performance. And so I was always exhausted by the time I got to the national championships. I mean, just flat out exhausted. And as an athlete, I was really hard on myself and I was like, what's wrong with me? Why do I feel like this now that I know more as a coach and I understand more about training theory? I look back and I realize I was running out of gas. That wasn't something that I could really change. That was just, those are the circumstances. I'm really happy with the way it worked out."
What about your Wake Forest experience has continued to help you as you move forward in your life and career?
Synder-Kerr: "Even though I did not completely reach those lofty goals that I had, I was really grateful because those experiences with the setbacks and learning how to be more of an adult and to speak up for myself when I needed to and to advocate for myself and to take ownership of those things really prepared me for ultimately where my life would go, which was to be a working mother of a large family and to work as an educator and to work as a coach and to impact other people's lives.
"And so those experiences inform my decisions that I make every day. And I'm really grateful for them because, I mean, the national title would've been really nice, but making the Olympics would've been great, but I'm not sure that I would be a better person with those titles. And so I'm really, really happy with where my life is, and I'm really grateful for those experiences because ultimately when I looked for it, Wake Forest gave me the support that I needed."
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