Jeannie Senter
Contributor | 2016
Jeannie began volunteering in 1964 with the National Wheelchair Athletic Association when disability sport was in its infancy, starting at the National Wheelchair Games. In five states, over more than five decades, her volunteer responsibilities included officiating, coaching, classifying and teaching. Jeannie was one of a handful of volunteers at Queens College in 1966 who started a recreation program for children with disabilities. She also taught one of the only Adapted Physical Education classes in New York City in the late 60s at Walton High School.
While in graduate school for Physical Therapy in Ohio, Jeannie coached field events with the Cleveland Comets Wheelchair Track & Field team. She went on to the 1971 Pan American Games in Kingston, Jamaica as a staff volunteer and was a member of the coaching staff to the Stoke Mandeville Games in England in 1973. Jeannie was the first female in the history of the NWAA to be on the coaching staff for an international event.
Jeannie taught hundreds of people the benefits of sport for individuals with disabilities, including parents, health professionals and college students in the fields of Physical Therapy; Adapted Physical Education; Vocational Rehabilitation; Nursing; and Medicine. In North Carolina she consulted with St. Andrews College to start a track & field meet, teaching volunteers one weekend and running the meet the next. Prior to those meets, none of the volunteers had ever seen wheelchair sports.
In 1988, as a volunteer Jeannie helped develop the youth sports program at Lakeshore Foundation in Homewood, Alabama along with her friend, Randy Snow. She volunteered for many years with the youth program, coaching the Lakeshore field events team. In 2003 Jeannie was the field coach for the National Junior team that competed in Australia. In 2004, Jeannie went to Athens as one of six coaches selected for the first Paralympic Youth Academy in conjunction with the Paralympic Games.
After relocating to Georgia in 2005, Jeannie continued to officiate and classify at Junior Nationals and regional meets. She also ran the Table Tennis events and became a nationally certified Table Tennis classifier. Jeannie was inducted into the Dixie Wheelchair Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2010 and received the Ted Kaplan Award in 2012. Jeannie retired from national events in 2016 but continued to officiate and classify at regional events.
