Derek Jeter and his sister Sharlee Jeter at the 2017 Derek Jeter Celebrity Invitational gala.Photo:David Becker/Getty
David Becker/Getty
Much like her famous big brother,Derek Jeter, Sharlee Jeter is a star athlete.
Growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, baseball was in the Jeter blood. While Derek is well-known as one of thegreatest New York Yankee playersof all time,his father, Sanderson Charles Jeter, also played baseball, and his younger sister, Sharlee, was an excellent high school softball player.
Though she dreamed of playing inthe Olympics, being in her brother’s shadow grew frustrating, and she changed her plans. But that doesn’t mean there is any animosity — the Jeter siblings are very close. The two publicly and privately support each other, especially during Shalee’s battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was a 21-year-old senior at Spelman College in Atlanta.
Sharlee now works in high-powered positions in many of Derek’s businesses. She is president of his non-profit, the Turn 2 Foundation; the VP of Strategy & Development of Jeter Ventures; and oversees the children and adult divisions of Jeter Publishing.
“I’m always going to have this man’s back! Thanks for trusting me with one of your greatest achievements @derekjeter," Sharleecaptioneda photo of herself and Derek at the Turn 2 Gala in October 2022. “You have done so much for so many through the Turn 2 Foundation. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
She is also the co-author of the bookThe Stuff: Unlock Your Power to Overcome Challenges, Soar, and Succeed, an exploration of how people overcome hardships, much like Sharlee did as a young adult cancer survivor.
“I turned something really bad into something that, for me, was a badge of honor,” she told theNew York Postin 2018. “Taking a cancer diagnosis and saying, ‘This is going to be my thing. It’s going to separate me from Derek. No one can compare me to him, with this battle. Nobody can say I got through it because of him.’ What they’re gonna say is I got through it.”
So who is Derek Jeter’s sister? Here’s everything to know about Sharlee Jeter.
She is a Michigan native
Derek Jeter and Sharlee Jeter in 2018.Chance Yeh/Getty
Chance Yeh/Getty
The younger child of Dorothy and Sanderson Jeter, who met in 1972 while serving in the United States Army, Sharlee was born in 1979. Though her brother was born in New Jersey, Sharlee was born and raised in Michigan.
She graduated from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1997. The family quite literally lived and breathed America’s pastime — as the Jeters lived next door to the school’s softball and baseball complex.
Both Jeter kids grew up with a strong work ethic and signed handwritten contracts at the beginning of every school year that spelled out their study habits, expected grades and curfew times. Sharlee toldLeaders Magazinethat her father, a drug and alcohol abuse counselor, and her mother, an accountant, “instilled in Derek and me the importance of hard work, education and community service.”
After Kalamazoo Central, Sharlee earned her B.S. in mathematics from Spelman College in Atlanta in 2001.
She was also a ball player
Sharlee Jeter during the CC Sabathia Friends Celebrity Softball Game in 2023.Cassidy Sparrow/Getty
Cassidy Sparrow/Getty
Derek isn’t the only Jeter who knows his way around the baseball field!
Like Derek, Sharlee was a shortstop. She played in high school, and theNew York Timesreported in 2001 that Derek thought his sister was the best shortstop in the family.
The entire Jeter family would condition together, going on nightly walks and working on techniques.
“Some people go to the movies for fun,” Sharlee told theWestchester Journal Newsin 1999. “We went to the field. It was part of being close.”
Sharlee dreamed of attending the University of Michigan and playing in the Olympics, but being compared to Derek took its toll, and she altered those plans.
“He didn’t have that shadow over him. I had it every day of my life,” she once said, according to theNew York Times.
She is a cancer survivor
Sharlee Jeter at the opening of Hard Rock Hotel New York in 2022.Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan/Getty
Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan/Getty
Sharlee was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in November 2001, during her senior year at Spelman.
Her parents had since moved to Northern New Jersey, where Dorothy had grown up, and Sharlee convinced them that she could stay in school in Georgia and do her treatments in New York City. During her six months of chemotherapy, she flew back and forth between Atlanta and Newark, New Jersey, every two weeks. Though she was disappointed to not walk with her classmates in May 2001, she graduated only a few months later that December.
“I’m not going to allow something to come into my life and turn everything upside down,” Sharlee toldmlive.comin 2018. “I think being young was helpful, being young and fearless, and just saying no, I don’t want to move back home.”
While Sharlee was going through treatment, the Jeter family kept her cancer battle private. It wasn’t until she was declared in remission in May 2001 that Derek revealed the news because “now it’s a success story.”
“Our family is not immune to anything that goes on in society,” Derek told theTimes. “We never expect[ed] nothing like this to hit our family. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with and, fortunately, it’s over with.”
“It was more difficult for her,” the Hall of Famer added. “We don’t want to make it out that it was more difficult for me. She’s the one that was going through it.”
Sharlee toldTodayin 2018 that Derek’s reaction to her cancer was like “any big brother.”
“To me, he was very calm, supportive, but his reaction behind the scenes, he’d call my parents and it’d be a different tone and ‘what’s going on’ and drilling them what happened at the doctor. He was a little bit more shaken up than what he showed to me,” she said.
She is a baseball mom
Sharlee Jeter and her son Jalen.Sharlee Jeter Instagram
Sharlee Jeter Instagram
Sharlee is a single mom to her son Jalen Jeter-Martin, whom she shares withDJ Premierand is raising in New Jersey.
“Jalen, you bring light to everyone you encounter. You are kind, you are eager to learn, you are a good friend and you love hard,” Sharlee wrote onInstagramin honor of her son’s 12th birthday in June 2023. “Thank you for blessing my life. Thank you for showing me my true purpose. And thanks for the constant joy and laughter.”
Like his mom, uncle, and grandfather, Jalen is also a baseball player. His mom has proudlyshared photosof Jalen’s athletic accomplishments, including playing on the Northeast Stripes USA Baseball team and beingnamed MVPat the 2023 Ripken Tournament. Jalen has also gone on funbaseball outingswith his famous uncle.
Jalen is, to no surprise, a big Yankees fan. Dorothy instilled a lifetime love of the pinstripes in her family — and during a rain delay in October 2022, Jalen excitedly visited his uncle’s display in the Yankee Museum.
She is very close with her brother
Hannah Davis, Derek Jeter, and Sharlee Jeter at BKLYN Rocks in 2016.Astrid Stawiarz/Getty
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty
Derek and Sharlee are a tight sibling duo, sometimes speaking to each other five times a day, according to theNew York Times.
Sharlee has also given Derek sweet shoutouts onInstagram.
“Thank you for not killing me when we were younger and for teaching me things as we got older. And mostly, thanks for being a best friend to me and an amazing Uncle to Jalen,” she wrote in part alongside a slideshow of pics in honor of Derek’s 48th birthday in 2022.
She’s also attended a number of red-carpet events with her brother, including the Tribeca Film Festival screening ofThe Captain, the 2017 Derek Jeter Celebrity Invitational gala and the 2015 ESPYs.
She is the president of Derek Jeter’s non-profit foundation
Derek Jeter and Sharlee Jeter attend 19th Annual Turn 2 Foundation Dinner in 2015.Steve Zak Photography/Getty
Steve Zak Photography/Getty
Sharlee has been the president of theTurn 2 Foundationsince 2010.
Sharlee has been with the foundation since high school, joining as a volunteer in 1996. She was named to the Board of Directors at 18 and became the full-time program director in 2002. Two years later, she was promoted to director of development and then vice president in 2007. She earned the Jackie Robinson Foundation Chairman’s Award in 2015 and was recognized as one of Crain’s New York Business’ Notable Black Leaders and Executives in 2021.
In 2023, Sharlee was back in Kalamazoo to break ground on a new baseball and softball complex, to be renamed Derek Jeter Field, at her and her brother’s former high school.
“This project for us is an amazing way not just for the kids to have a great playing environment, but also for them to learn life lessons, which this is these very fields are where me and Derek learned many, many life lessons through our parents,” Sharlee toldFox 17.
In addition to her work as president of Turn 2, Sharlee has also been the VP of Strategy & Development of Jeter Ventures, Derek’s business ventures portfolio, since 2018.
“Working alongside my brother to give back is a dream I never dreamt when I was growing up. It’s one that just happened. Thanks to his accomplishments, his dreams, and his goals,” she wrote onInstagramin 2023. “It’s truly funny how life works. And I am so blessed. I have a job that allows me to give back every single day. And I am so grateful.”
She is an author and works in publishing
Jalen Jeter-Martin and Sharlee Jeter attend CC Sabathia Celebrity Softball Game in 2019.Cassidy Sparrow/Getty
The Michigan native co-authored a book,The Stuff: Unlock Your Power to Overcome Challenges, Soar, and Succeed, with her friend, Dr. Davis Sampson.
Released in 2018, the book is a collection of hundreds of stories from ordinary people who have tackled difficult circumstances, and it features a foreword from Derek.
Though she initially kept her cancer battle private, Sharlee realized years later that talking about her illness could help not only herself heal mentally, but others as well.
“If they can do this, then I could too,” Sharlee told mlive.com. “So, when I saw all these people who were willing to talk about what they had gone through in order to help others, then it was, ‘Okay, let’s talk about it.’ Because if it’s going to help or inspire someone else to get through their situation, then it’s worth the discussion.”
In addition to having a book of her own published, Sharlee oversees the adult and children’s arms of Jeter Publishing, an imprint of Simon & Schuster that has published a number ofNew York Times Best Sellers, includingThe ContractandHit & Miss.
source: people.com
