Hokie Feature: Anne Jones Thompson and Lynne Krulich
Alumnae Anne Jones Thompson and Lynne Krulich were the first women at Virginia Tech to receive athletic scholarships. In honor of Women’s History Month, we met with the sisters to reflect on some of their greatest athletic endeavors to highlight their inspiring story.
Virginia Tech
Having attended football games with their grandparents growing up, the sisters became Hokies very early on. The sisters were introduced to the game of tennis at age nine, and by the time they were in high school, their eyes were set on the collegiate level.
"[Playing at the collegiate level] was competitive, but it was a lot of fun. As long as we were playing tennis, that’s all we wanted to do. College was just a stepping stone to keep playing tennis for as long as we could,” said Anne.
Loving the game and each others’ company, it never crossed their minds to attend different schools.
“We just enjoyed [being together]. We always had a practice partner. We spent a lot of time practicing and growing up hitting tennis balls with each other. All through college, if we had extra time or in the summers, we would practice together,” said Lynne.
The sisters made history as being the first women to receive athletic scholarships at the university and were “proud that they were able to do that,” reveling in the friendships they made.
“Title 9 had just passed when we were in junior high school. By the time we got to high school, they had tennis, track and field and basketball, but early on they didn’t have any women’s sports, and we had to run on the boy’s track team. [College for us] was a time when women's sports were just coming into the picture, and there weren’t a lot of [them]. It was just a good time to make some good friends, and we were able to do that through athletics,” said Lynne.
Post-grad: marathons, adventure races, and more
Their time at Virginia Tech was only the beginning of living an active life.
“I definitely think tennis was a catalyst. Once we found tennis, we always had somewhere to go and something to do outside. It led to all other things,” said Lynne. “Any running we had done started out as a means to get better at tennis or to get in better shape for tennis or to be quicker for tennis, then everything else followed,” said Anne.
What followed tennis was 40 years of triathlons, marathons, adventure races, spartan races, Iron Man challenges, biking, tennis tournaments, hiking, and everything in between.
“We needed another competitive outlet, and that’s when we got into running. When we got into marathons, that led into other crazy things. We just wanted to do the crazy things because they were definitely very challenging,” said Anne.
“Tennis to us was always competitive. But triathlons and running, we just did to finish. We did some shorter races where we were competitive, but the marathons and the Iron Man triathlon we wanted to finish,” said Lynne.
Anne really took to adventure races over the years. The longest race she had done was a 40 hour race, which consisted of trail running, mountain biking, some sort of water sport, sometimes rope climbing, and a lot of time spent in the woods.
“You learn a lot about yourself [during an adventure race]. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but you know it’s going to end so you just keep pushing through it, and your body and mind will start to work together again. [Adventure races] were a lot of fun, they were quite the adventure for me,” said Anne.
What's next?
Artificial knees for the sisters has been the biggest change for them more recently, but that hasn’t stopped their drive for being active. In fact, they still have big plans for adventure later this year.
“We’ve got a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon planned for early October, so that’s our next big event. It’ll take us down and through [the canyon] and up the other side, and then the same on the way back,” said Lynne, “We have some crazy friends we used to bike with that want to go with us, so it’s more like a reunion and a hike all put together. It might be a little warm, but it’ll be a good trip.”
Where they are now
When they’re not running marathons, playing doubles tournaments in Arizona, biking the Blue Ridge Parkway, or hiking the Grand Canyon, you can find Lynne supervising the Blacksburg Aquatic Center and Anne teaching tennis lessons at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center here on campus.
When asked to reflect on the past roughly 40 years of adventure, the sisters “wouldn’t change a thing.”