Throughout the years of professional sports, the world has seen a plethora of siblings dominating in each of their respective sports.
Peyton Manning and Eli Manning are both former NFL quarterbacks. The brothers won two Super Bowls each while filling out their hall-of-fame worthy resumes in the National Football League.
The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, dominated the sport of tennis for decades, winning over 100 singles titles between the two of them.
Even Reggie and Cheryl Miller, the former once holding the all-time record for three-pointers made, and the latter being so good at basketball she was drafted into a men’s league in 1986.
These sibling duos have each reached astounding accomplishments in their own right. However, there is one glaring similarity amongst these examples. They all played the same sport.
While there are a variety of instances like these athletes, the rarity of a pair of siblings excelling in two different sports is few and far between.
Enter the Sun Devils’ Lee sisters. Jenna and Kayla are both Division I athletes competing at Arizona State. Jenna is a senior majoring in data analytics and competing in track, while Kayla is a freshman majoring in civil engineering who is on the ASU gymnastics team.
While Jenna and Kayla now compete in separate sports, Jenna actually started her athletic career at a young age in gymnastics.
“I probably did it on and off until maybe second grade,” Jenna said. “My mom did gymnastics when she was in high school, which is why she put Kayla and I in that.”
Along with gymnastics, Jenna played a number of other sports growing up.
“I ran the gamut of it in elementary school,” Lee said “I did gymnastics for a while, I did a little dance and some tennis, I played flag football at one point and then I ended up running as I was hopping through sports. I picked up running in the sixth grade and ended up sticking with it.”
On the other hand, Kayla had a more unorthodox entry into her primary passion.
“I would have to go everyday with my mom [to Jenna’s practice] and wait for Jenna to finish,” Kayla said. “Then I just ended up having so much energy that my mom wanted to enroll me too, and I ended up taking over that sport.”
While Jenna tried her hand at many different sports, Kayla stuck with gymnastics from day one and realized where she could take her skill within the sport.
“It just took time,” Kayla said. “Similar to school, if I was going to be doing it, I might as well do it to the best of my ability. I got to a point where I thought, ‘Oh, I guess I could potentially do this competitively and do it in college.’ So I took it a little more seriously after that.”
When it came to realizing they could each compete in their respective sports at a highest competitive collegiate level, the decision came relatively late for Jenna.
“That didn't really come until my senior year of high school. I knew that I loved running and that was something that I always wanted to keep doing,” Jenna said. “I also knew that I wanted to go to a large college. I didn't realize I was capable of running at a large college and running on a team collegiately at the DI level until my senior year of high school when I was finally competitive enough.”
While Jenna began to realize that potential toward the end of high school, Kayla recognized it toward the beginning of her high school career, but because of their age difference, that realization really came about around the same time.
“I would say closer to when I started high school,” Kayla said. “I realized I could actually do a little more than just have it (gymnastics) as a side hobby.”
Once Jenna realized where she could take her track career, she began her college search.
“I was looking at a couple of smaller schools, smaller DIII schools, but nothing was super serious,” Jenna said. “I didn't take any official visits.”
After one of her Arizona state track meets in high school, Jenna reached out to the ASU coaches and asked what the program’s standards were. Ultimately, she hit those numbers. Then, they went to one of her meets.
“They came to the state track meet, watched my 3200 race and was like, ‘Wow, this is something,’” Jenna said. “They called me and brought me to the track to meet up with them. I didn't realize I was on the team. I thought we were just having a conversation until they asked me if I already had my roommates picked out and I thought, ‘Wait, what?’ That kind of took me by surprise that I was on the team at that point.”
For Kayla, it was much simpler.
“I always knew that I wanted to stay in state and this opportunity came up and I just took it and ran with it,” Kayla said. “Because it was a great school, Jenna was here and it was close to home.”
Since Kayla’s arrival at ASU, Jenna has relished the role of the older sister.
“I walked her to all of her classes at the beginning of the year,” Jenna said. “I said, ‘Hey, these are things that I did to balance my time. This is something to look into for yourself,’ and show her the ropes. It's something that I've enjoyed doing.”
When it comes to the accolade of being two siblings competing in different sports at a Division I school, both Jenna and Kayla find the feat to be incredible.
“I thought there would be more siblings. But I found that all the siblings are in the same sport,” Kayla said. “It's crazy that somehow we ended up in different sports at the same university.”
Jenna shared a similar sentiment.
“It is so cool. I didn't realize how rare it was until recently,” Jenna said. “Kayla and I kind of just always had our things that we did, and they just happened to be different sports. I think it's really cool to be able to go to the same school, and to pursue my individual passions and have her pursue her individual passions, but to be able to do it with each other.”
While the Lee sisters continue to chart their individual paths in each of their respective sports, together, they continue to change the game and inspire others to do the same.