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Jerry Thor has served in higher education for over a decade as an instructor, coach, and administrator and comes to FSCJ from Carl Sandburg College, where he was the athletic director whose transformation of the department led to the most successful year in school history. Thor also served as head coach of the Chargers Esports program that won the college’s first national championship in any sport.

Prior to Sandburg, Thor was the assistant athletic director at Iowa Central for the top-ranked two-year athletic department in the nation. During his tenure, the Tritons were four-time Daktronics Cup champions for overall program excellence in two-year college athletics and won four straight Learfield Cups designating the #1 department in the nation at each level of college sports.

Thor finished his career at Iowa Central as the winningest tennis coach in school history, going 94-34. In 2021, Iowa Central’s women’s team had a perfect 17-0 record in the regular season, which was capped off by both men’s and women’s teams posting top-10 finishes at the NJCAA Division I national championships. Both teams repeated as ITA All-Academic Team and won back-to-back ITA National Community Service & Outreach Awards.

In 2018, Thor launched one of the first college Esports programs in the country and quickly developed it into one of the best in the country. He spoke at the 2019 National Association of College Esports (NACE) national convention on best practices in growing a program and developing a positive team culture. He was also a founding member of the National Junior College Athletic Association Esports (NJCAAE) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, where he worked to expand opportunities for students and ensure all feel welcome in esports at the collegiate level.

Thor arrived at Iowa Central after building Eastern Florida and Seward County into national powers in NJCAA DI tennis. At each school he took over programs struggling to find their way and quickly achieved top 10 national rankings for both men’s and women’s teams, multiple region titles, and an ITA National Championship. Along with a list of award-winning players, Thor was recognized by peers as an ITA Region Coach of the Year.

Thor played collegiate tennis at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois. He helped Moraine Valley to two Skyway Conference titles and two Region IV titles, while earning First Team All-Conference and Region IV selections as a freshman and sophomore. He twice competed at the NJCAA National Championships in Plano, TX, where Moraine Valley finished ranked among the top 20 in the nation. He was also an NJCAA Academic All-American and ITA Scholar-Athlete, and in 2015 was inducted into the college's Alumni Hall of Fame.

After graduating from Moraine Valley, Thor attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a degree in finance. He later earned his master’s in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University Irvine, where Thor credits the program’s Athletic Director Institute for inspiring him to servant leadership in college athletics.

Thor and his wife Veronica are originally from Chicago and have three sons: Sebastian, Benjamin, and Theodore.