Terri Kendall turned 50 last year – which is kind
of astounding, given how active and powerful an
athlete the Louisville native still is.
But that’s not what this story is about.
Like many people who reach that age, Kendall
discovered that 50 is just the number that follows 49.
What’s more pertinent, though, is the story of
Kendall’s athletic life at the formation, when she
was a preteen in suburban Chicago and showing
an aptitude for soccer, softball, football, tumbling.
“I started playing softball at 11 and field hockey
at 14, and I sort of really never stopped.”
It was another cultural era, however, and it
nearly strangled her promising career.
It was the mid-to-late 1970s. There weren’t a
lot of programs available for girl athletes. And
not a lot of parents looking to encourage their
daughters into the sports world.
“My parents wanted me to play music,” she
said, “but I was a jock. I ran as fast as the guys, I
played as well as the guys.
Even after excelling in high school sports,
despite attending three schools in three different
states, Kendall ended up enrolling at Western State
Connecticut University, a Division III school with
no athletic scholarships. fulfilled, satisfied. “If I’m grounded for a week, I
feel crappy. I just want to be up in the air.”
And then she dabbled, finding every possible
outlet for her abilities – softball, field hockey,
soccer, football, running races, competing in
triathlons, mountain biking, road biking, men’s
lacrosse, men’s ice hockey, roller hockey – while
turning her psychology degree into a career as
a school psychologist with Jefferson County
Public Schools. SHOULDER AND OLDER
She played well into her 40s, until her knees
began to give out, as knees do when you’ve been
as active as Kendall was for so many years. Surgery was contemplated. She hesitated. Would
she recover enough to ever perform again? After
all, she was about to turn 50.
THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN “I had reached an advanced aerial stage,” she
said, “one that I had been striving for, for years. So,
the idea of taking a huge step back, or not coming
back at all, was a lot to think about.
And then it was February 2010, she recalled.
“A friend of mine, who was already doing aerials,
called me. ‘Hey, we’re doing a circus workshop,
want to come?’ I said, ‘Sure, why not, I’ll give it
a try.’ ”
“I kept coming home, saying I want to try
ice skating, I want to try gymnastics,” Kendall
said. If any of her three brothers had shown any
extraordinary athletic promise (they didn’t), “I’m
sure my parents would have been all in.” She had always been a climber. “My mom said
they couldn’t hide Christmas presents, because
I’d find them.”
She recalled begging her parents for gymnastics
lessons. (“I was super-acrobatic.”) They wouldn’t
pay the $13 an hour. “But they were willing to pay
$650 for my brother to learn karate.” “I looked out across the theater and I was
happier than I’d ever been in my life. I t