All About Jessica Pegula's Parents, Terry and Kim Pegula

Jessica Pegula credits her dad and mom for helping her achieve her tennis dreams

Jessica Pegula is one of the top-ranked tennis players in the world, and she’s also the daughter of Buffalo Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula.

The professional tennis player was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and she grew up in Wexford, Pa., where she started playing tennis at the age of 7. Over the years, Jessica has climbed the ranks — including making the semi-finals in the 2024 US Open — all the while talking about her parents and how they’ve contributed to her success.

Even though they’re co-owners of several sports teams, they maintain that Jessica’s career is their top priority. “We always say she’s our first sports team and our favorite,” Kim told WKBW-TV in August 2019, after Jessica won the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.

Terry and Kim met at a restaurant in 1991 and married two years later. For the majority of their three-decade-long relationship, they’ve worked together and are the current owners of the Buffalo Bills NFL team and the Buffalo Sabres NHL team.

In February 2023, Jessica wrote an essay for The Players’ Tribune in which she opened up about her mom going into cardiac arrest in June 2022. She explained that her family navigated the unknown as Kim recovered, but there were still uncertainties about her heath and the businesses at the time.

Here’s everything to know about Jessica Pegula’s parents, Terry and Kim Pegula.

Kim was born in South Korea

Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, and she was raised in Fairport, N.Y., after she was adopted at the age of 5 by her Canadian-born parents, Ralph and Marilyn Kerr, according to Democrat and Chronicle.

The newspaper reported that Kim was left near a police station, and she spent time in an orphanage. Her dad and mom received the call about her on Christmas Eve 1974, and on New Year's Eve, Kim met her parents and two brothers at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Though she doesn't remember her early childhood, she can't deny the impact the move had on her life. “They've obviously been the biggest influences in my life,” Kim said, referring to her parents in a 2016 interview published on NFL.com. “Think of the fate in life ... that it got to be me who lived this dream."

Jessica has shared about how she’s continuing to learn about her heritage. After she won the 2023 Hana Bank Korea Open in Seoul, the tennis player posted a series of photos with her trophy and shared a heartfelt message about what the accomplishment meant to her.

“This one is extra special,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I am half Korean. I don’t speak and I am still learning about my culture ... but I have been overwhelmed by the support from Korean fans."

Jessica continued, "My mom visited her orphanage here when I played this event 4 years ago. It was the first time she felt open about learning about her past."

Terry and Kim met at a restaurant in 1991

When Kim crossed paths with Terry in 1991, she had recently graduated from Houghton College with a degree in communications and wanted to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.

According to her interview on NFL.com, then-21-year-old Kim was planning a trip to Alaska to work at a fishing camp, and she decided to apply for a waitress job in upstate New York to raise funds for the journey.

While filling out her paperwork, Kim started talking to Terry, who was eating at the restaurant. At the time, he was a 39-year-old divorced dad of two children. The entrepreneur gave her his business card and later offered her a job at East Resources, his oil and gas exploration and production company.

"The rest is history," she told NFL.com. Terry and Kim would go on to wed in 1993.

Terry is a self-made businessman

Terry was born in Carbondale, Pa., and attended Penn State University, where he majored in petroleum and natural gas engineering and graduated in 1973, per a profile from his alma mater.

His first job out of college was at Getty Oil Co. in Texas, eventually taking an engineering job at Felmont Oil Co. in 1975. The new position relocated him to Olean, N.Y., near where he'd one day meet Kim.

Eight years later, he founded East Resources Inc. after borrowing $7,500 from family and friends. By 2010, Terry sold the majority of his assets to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion, per Forbes.

They share three kids together

Throughout their marriage, Terry and Kim have welcomed three children together: Jessica, Kelly and Matthew.

In addition to her tennis career, Jessica has teamed up with her husband Taylor Gahagen for a few ventures. She started the skincare brand Ready 24 in 2018, where he's vice president, and they also founded A Lending Paw, a charity that trains rescue dogs to become service animals.

While pursuing businesses in the beauty and pet space, Jessica also worked with her sister Kelly to open several health-focused cafés called The Healthy Scratch in 2016, though the last two locations closed in 2022.

Related: Who Is Jessica Pegula’s Husband? All About Taylor Gahagen

Meanwhile, Matthew appears to be the most private of Terry and Kim's shared kids.

Terry also has two children, Laura and Michael, from a previous marriage. Laura played tennis at the University of Pittsburgh, and Terry “transferred a small percentage” of the Buffalo Bills team to her in May 2024, according to The Athletic. The decision was reportedly made in response to Kim's ongoing recovery, during which her responsibilities as president have ceased.

They co-own the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres

After selling his East Resources assets, Terry and Kim set their sights on sports: They started by giving $102 million to build the Pegula Ice Arena at Penn State in 2010 and then purchased the Buffalo Sabres NHL team the following year.

In 2014, Terry and Kim took over as the second owners of the Buffalo Bills NFL team. “Owning any professional team is about winning and the primary goal of our ownership will be to win the Super Bowl and bring championships to the city of Buffalo,” he said in a press conference.

In addition, the pair own the National Lacrosse League teams, the Buffalo Bandits and Rochester Knighthawks. They also manage the hockey team Rochester Americans.

More recently, in August 2023, the Associated Press reported that Terry dissolved their company Pegula Sports and Entertainment and named himself the president of the Bills and Sabres.

“We are thankful for the work and effort so many individuals have put into PSE over the years, but feel it is the right time for them to return home to separate organizations,” he said in a statement, referring to the Bills and Sabres' operations. “We feel that now is the right time to dissolve PSE and allow everyone to focus solely on their respective organization.”

Kim is continuing to recover from her cardiac arrest

In Jessica’s essay for The Players’ Tribune, she detailed how her family dealt with her mother's cardiac arrest in June 2022.

According to the professional tennis player, Kim experienced the medical emergency while asleep, and Terry tried to help her. Jessica's sister Kelly, who was staying over, performed CPR on her, and the paramedics were able to restore a heartbeat.

Jessica shared that her family “lived in that hospital for basically two weeks” afterward, and her dad didn’t want to leave her mom’s side.

“Today, my mom is still in recovery and although it is the same answer every time someone asks me, it is true, she is improving every day,” she wrote, providing an update on her mom’s condition in February 2023. “She is dealing with significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues. She can read, write, and understand pretty well, but she has trouble finding the words to respond.”

In November 2022, a few months after her mom’s cardiac arrest, Jessica won her first WTA 1000 title in Guadalajara, Mexico, and she dedicated the win to her mom.

“I wanted her to know that even after a terrible six months, I still fought every day because of her,” she wrote in the essay. “If she could fight through what she was going through, I could too. She cried during my speech and trophy ceremony ... My mom deserved to see me lift a trophy after what she had been through.”

Since then, Kim has made occasional appearances, including attending a practice session at a Bills training camp in June 2022.

They get nervous watching Jessica play tennis

According to Jessica, Terry and Kim avoid watching her matches in person because of their nerves.

“He just tells me ‘good job,’ ’’ Pegula said in a press conference at the US Open in September 2022, per the New York Post. “He likes to give his little recap of the match or what the opponent was doing. He might enjoy watching at home."

In her February 2023 essay for The Players’ Tribune, Jessica mentioned that her mom has started watching more of her matches. “She never watched my matches before, because she got too nervous,” she wrote. “Now she watches all of them.”

She also mentioned how her parents have influenced her career. “My parents have helped me achieve this dream I am living," Jessica penned. "Even though we didn’t always agree, they pushed me, and I pushed back, and it got me to where I am today.”

In a September 2021 interview on the Bills Pod Squad podcast, Jessica shared more details about her relationship with her parents and how they helped her.

“Dad and I are like oil and water on the tennis court — it does not mix well,” she said. “But he definitely always pushed me to do better. To work hard, you can always outwork somebody, all that type of stuff. He’s very old school.”

Speaking about her mom Kim, Jessica added, “You were the more off-court, get healthy. Like the diet, the recovery [and] the training."

They split their time between New York and Florida

“One of the big discussion points we always have is, ‘Where are we gonna be, in Florida or New York, this week?’ ” Terry said in an episode of the Bills Pod Squad in January 2022.

When they’re not in Buffalo cheering on their sports teams, Terry and Kim spend most of their time at their home in Boca Raton, Fla.

The couple purchased the eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom house for $6.5 million in 2010, per The Real Deal. Their 12-acre estate features a 14,000-square-foot home, a 10-car garage and a 40,000-gallon heated outdoor pool.

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