Lake Forest College

Jill Wilkerson joined the Forester cross country and track and field coaching staffs in 2022 and was named the associate head coach of both programs in the summer of 2025.

Lake Forest's women's cross country team finished fifth at the 2025 Midwest Conference Championship Meet while the men placed ninth. Lettia Hoda's 22:26.9 was the fastest women's 6-kilometer time in program history and she earned All-MWC honors for the second time while fellow junior Sophie Graham became a three-time All-MWC honoree. Owen Lashenik's 13th-place finish at the conference meet made him the men's team's first All-MWC performer since 2019 and he turned in the program's 11th-fastest 8-kilometer time at 26:04.8. Twenty-one members of the program, including a record 12 men, were named Academic All-MWC.

Forester cross country runners have now been named all-conference six times since Wilkerson joined the program. They have also earned 81 Academic All-MWC accolades during that span.

Wilkerson works primarily with the distance runners during the track and field season. In her four years on staff, Foresters running at least 800m have broken six school records, made 25 additional updates to the program's list of the top five performers in each event, and captured three conference titles in the men's 800m (Ollie Francis).

Prior to coming to Lake Forest, Wilkerson was a graduate assistant coach at Aurora University, where she helped lead the men's and women's track and field teams to runner-up finishes at the 2021 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Outdoor Championships. The Spartans also finished in the top five in the league in cross country in 2021 and in both indoor and outdoor track and field in 2022.

A graduate of Augustana College, Wilkerson finished out her cross country career with a ninth-place finish at the 2019 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Championship Meet before placing 24th to earn all-region honors at the NCAA Division III Midwest Regional. In track she qualified for the 2020 NCAA Division III Championship Meet in the mile and still owns the program's fourth-fastest time in that event.