SAN ANTONIO – Jemuel Miller’s first thought was that he had died.
Less than two months earlier, he was on his sport’s biggest stage, earning the second All-America honor of his young career at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships as a freshman UTSA track & field student-athlete.
On that August day in 2022, he found himself lying on the sweltering asphalt at the intersection of Hausman Road and Kyle Seale Parkway near the Park West Athletics Complex where he trained daily.
Miller had just finished a rehabilitative treatment session for tendonitis that he was experiencing in his knee. He was walking home to his apartment that afternoon when the unthinkable happened.
“I was walking in the crosswalk, and a car stopped to let me finish crossing,” Miller said. “But then another car swerved around that car, and I guess he didn’t see me. I tried to back up, but my legs were kind of dead. It was too fast for me to do anything, and my first reaction was to jump.”
As Miller reflects on the moment more than three years since the accident, the events of that day still feel surreal.
“It was just a split-second,” he said. “I definitely lost consciousness because I remember when I hit the windshield, I was in the air and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. I tried to move my body and I couldn’t. I felt like I was probably there for a couple minutes just laying down until I slowly wiggled my fingers, but only my right side was moving. I opened my eyes and everything was bright and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m not dead.’
“I kind of hobbled to the sidewalk with just my right side,” Miller continued. “I remember looking at the faces of the people in the cars and they were shocked.”
It’s been a long journey for Miller since that point. Based on initial evaluations, it was uncertain if he would be able to compete in the sport ever again. A credit to Miller’s resilience, coupled with the support of his coaches and teammates, and the tireless work of the UTSA sports medicine staff, has him in the midst of one of the best seasons of his track & field career.
The winner of the 2026 American Conference triple jump championship both indoors and outdoors, Miller advanced through the NCAA West First Round in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and is fully prepared for a strong showing on the biggest stage NCAA Outdoor Championships on Friday, June 12, at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
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Technically Speaking
Growing up in Barbados, an island nation in the Caribbean, Miller was first drawn to cricket, the most popular sport in his native country. He eventually found his way to track & field and started with the high jump.
But it was his brother, Jonathan, who went on to his own All-American collegiate career, who encouraged Miller to try the triple jump. It was a perfect match.
The complexity of the triple jump was immediately compelling to Miller. The technical elements - the timing, the incorporation of a sprint and then the hop, step and jump - challenged him to maximize his strength, power and flexibility.
“I was probably 14 when I started the triple jump,” Miller said. “My brother encouraged me to train with him and give it a try. From there, I was hooked. I like the variables within it and how technical it is. Mainly I think it’s fun because of the technicality of it.”
Miller’s brother Jonathan, who is 11 months his senior, began drawing the interest of collegiate recruiters in the United States. Though his brother did not choose UTSA, the process allowed Miller’s family to develop a close relationship with Kareem Streete-Thompson, UTSA’s associate head coach to the program’s longtime head coach Aaron Fox.
Like Miller, Streete-Thompson hails from the Caribbean and is a native of the Cayman Islands. An Olympic sprinter and long jumper, Streete-Thompson had been an All-American, NCAA Champion and Hall of Famer at Rice. The similarities were many.
Miller’s brother decided on Nebraska, where he spent the 2019 season, before transferring to Florida. He was a two-time All-American for the Gators. The relationship that the Miller family – particularly his father, Edward – had developed with Streete-Thompson helped Miller find his way to San Antonio.
Miller’s resume was impressive, he had won the triple jump at the 2020 Barbados U20 National Championships and set a Barbados Secondary School Athletic Championships record. He claimed the high jump at that same meet. Earlier that year, Miller captured gold at the prestigious Louis Lynch Championships.
His first connection to the Roadrunners has proven to be one of the most impactful relationships of Miller’s track & field career. He credits Streete-Thompson for driving his holistic development.
“I am not an easy person to deal with,” Miller said. “Kareem is like a father figure. Based on my mentality – coming in so young and with so much happening – I have to give him props on being able to deal with me. He definitely has helped me mature as an athlete, mentally and physically.”
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Highest Highs and Lowest Lows
Competitively, Miller made an immediate and meaningful impact upon arriving at UTSA. His freshman year was filled with accomplishments and accolades that he hoped would be only the start of a standout career with the Roadrunners. He began his collegiate competitions with four consecutive wins in the triple jump.
Miller earned United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-America honors in the triple jump both indoors and outdoors, including a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships that accompanied a then-school-record mark of 16.17m/53-0.75. He swept the Conference USA Championships in the triple jump and placed fifth in the league in the long jump outdoors.
Miller was as successful academically, being named a USTFCCCA All-Academic Athlete and earning a spot on the Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll.
Except for some tendonitis that he was working diligently to get ahead of, everything seemed to be going according to plan until that fateful day in August 2022.
As he looks back on the experience, that accident was the start of a maturation process that has helped develop Miller into the person he is today. More than 2,700 miles away from home, it was the first time he really had to rely on himself to solve an incredibly difficult situation with the support of his coaches, roommates and teammates.
“It kind of put me in a predicament where I had to think for myself rather than relying heavily on my parents at that point in time,” Miller said. “I didn’t know what to do. If he had driven away, I wouldn’t have known to go to the hospital. I remember the ambulance was called and the first number I called was Kareem. I told him that I had gotten hit by a car. He relayed the information back to my parents and I called our trainer. I don’t think coach understood the extent of the accident until he saw me.”
The injuries Miller sustained were extensive.
“My left side was pretty banged up,” he said. “I broke my wrist and I had a lot of bone bruising on my hip. That’s mainly where I got hit by the car. From the glass, I had cuts all over my hand and then road rash from getting hit and skidding. When I broke my wrist, they were saying that it was broken in a way that was hard to heal back. It might never have healed back again.”
The mental toll that Miller’s accident took on him was as sizeable as his physical injuries. That fall, he was unable to participate in track & field activities, and the result of that reality was especially difficult.
“They were kind of dark times because I couldn’t understand how that happened,” Miller said. “The variables within that accident were just so weird. I probably wasn’t the best athlete or teammate at that point because of how I was thinking. I was coming to practice late and I was isolating myself.”
Miller’s support system at UTSA identified his struggles and helped put him on a path to recovery. He began sessions with a mental health professional who specialized in working with athletes. His coaches and teammates provided the encouragement that he needed.
“Kareem helped guide me back to seeing what was important in terms of being with the team, how they could help me and how he could help me,” Miller said. “They kind of built a cocoon for me.”
Miller began viewing his training and rehab sessions – which he had initially seen as laborious – as his path back to normalcy.
“Honestly, at first, I was just doing it because I had to; that’s what I was here for,” Miller said. “But then I saw it as an opportunity to work on other stuff that I was very weak at like other muscle groups and my specific rehab. When I came back, I would be better than how I left. That was the driving factor, along with our [athletic] trainers. They really helped me a lot mentally and stuck with me physically.”
* * *
The Glass Cannon
Though Miller made a full recovery after being hit by a car, the effects lingered for several more years. It seemed as if he could never shake the cycle caused by the accident.
There were bright spots in the 2023 campaign that included a trio of Conference USA Field Athlete of the Week honors and the C-USA indoor triple jump championship, but he soon became hampered with a nagging hamstring injury.
The next two seasons, Miller struggled to remain healthy, though he did qualify for the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the triple jump, earning USTFCCCA Second-Team All-America honors. He was unable to compete during the 2025 campaign.
“Every year I have always had injuries because of the car accident,” he said. “The following year, my body was not prepared because I wasn’t able to do any fall training, so I ended up hurting my hamstring. It was just a cycling effect for a couple of years. Even though I had a little bit of success, it always came at the expense of my body not holding up for the whole season.”
Over the last several years, Miller drew on the strength he had gained from his accident to help him through the adversity of his various ailments.
“It definitely pushed me to be more resilient,” he said. “Whenever I got injured, I would tell myself, ‘It can’t be that bad, I got hit by a car.’ So, it kind of matured me in a way not to panic, but to also look at the bright side and how I can further help build what I need to build so I can get what I need to get.”
In preparation for the 2025-26 school year and having not competed in the previous collegiate season, Miller made the decision that, in order to reach his full potential, his fall training would need to be as rigorous as possible.
“As Kareem would say, I was like a glass cannon,” Miller said. “He had been more hands-off because he didn’t want me to get hurt. Last summer, I had a conversation with him saying that I wanted to get into rehab and lifting and I wanted my body to be perfect so that I could push as hard as I could in fall training. I did just that. This fall, he really put the pedal to the medal with me. It has shown dividends this spring.”
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Only Up To Go
It’s been quite the ride for Miller since he first set foot on the UT San Antonio campus. As he began the 2026 season, he was destined to make what could be his last season with the Roadrunners his best.
“If it was going to be my last year, I wanted to have equal footing with the guys I compete with,” he said. “Every time I’ve competed with them, I always had something wrong. I just wanted to have equal footing so I can see how I actually compare with them.”
Four times this track & field season, Miller has been named American Conference Field Athlete of the Week. He swept The American league crowns in the triple jump, winning both indoors and outdoors to increase his career conference title tally to four. Miller advanced to the NCAA Indoor Championships earlier this season and enters the NCAA Championships ranked 10th nationally in the triple jump.
Along the way this year, Miller has broken his own UTSA triple jump school records indoors (16.42m/53-10.50) and outdoors (16.69m/54-9.25). His indoor mark set the Barbados National Record and his outdoor measurement came just 1 cm shy of surpassing Olympian Alvin Haynes’ 1992 Barbadian record.
In the classroom, Miller earned his second degree from UT San Antonio’s prestigious Carlos Alvarez College of Business this May when he graduated with his master’s in business administration. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in business management. Miller has been a Dean’s List student and a College Sports Communicators Academic All-District selection during his time with the Roadrunners.
He looks to pursue a career in professional track & field before following in his father’s footsteps to one day work in supply chain management.
“The end goal is to get sponsored,” Miller said. “Hopefully I’m able to compete at that level where a sponsor can look at me and put their trust and faith in me.”
As his time at UTSA wanes, Miller looks for a career-best performance at the NCAA Outdoor Championship. The lessons learned from his experiences have not just helped spark his own transformation, but Miller knows they can be an inspiration to others facing similar obstacles.
“I hope people remember that I had fun and that I was a fun guy to be around,” Miller said. “I hope for encouragement towards any other athlete who knows my story. If they’re going through a rough time physically or mentally, they can come back from it. No matter how low you believe you are, never give up. If you’re at the breaking point, there’s only up to go.”
- UTSA -