Head First

Sporting News, The, Dec 6, 1999 by Sean Deveney

"Look at the guy we've got starting for us," says Rams scouting director Charley Armey, referring to Northern Iowa product and MVP candidate Kurt Warner. "I'd say a small school didn't hurt him. What matters is how he does, how he performs. Good football players are like gold nuggets. No one asks where you found them."

Pennington is driving down Third Avenue in the shadows of Huntington's factories and railyards, heading for a broadcasting class. His clunky red Oldsmobile Brougham is strewn with empty cans and yellowing sheets of paper, and it has seats layered with white cushions to hide their decrepitude. He is thinking about his future. A journalism major, he says he wants to bridge the gap between reporters and pro athletes. He pauses after saying "pro athletes."

"I guess that would be me," he says, as if it were a bit of mischief he had gotten away with.

Indeed, Pennington is an unlikely candidate for NFL stardom. He likes his car, for instance, and has no intention of getting rid of it, even when the cash starts coming in by the bagful.

"He doesn't carry himself that way," says Starkey, who along with Guilliams and backup offensive lineman Shaun Saunders, is Pennington's best friend. "A guy of his status, you would never know if you met him. He's a football player, but that's just not part of his run of conversation. I mean, you know he wants to play in the NFL, but if the NFL ended tomorrow, it wouldn't matter."

This role of a star athlete is not comfortable for Pennington, who grew up outside of Knoxville, Tenn., and attended the Webb School, which produces more candidates for law degrees than Heisman Trophies. Coming out of high school in 1995, Pennington was 6-2, 175 pounds with a good arm and meatless bones. He was recruited by I-AA programs like Middle Tennessee State and Tennessee-Chattanooga. Pennington got no interest from big-name programs and chose Marshall, which was I-AA at the time, mostly because his parents were alumni of the Huntington, W.Va, school.

"My goal as a freshman was to make the traveling squad," Pennington says.

But after injuries to Larry Harris and Mark Zban, Pennington was called on to start. It wasn't pretty--he threw six interceptions in his first outing. The experience was good for Pennington, though, because it forced him to learn on his feet, to recognize simple things like zone coverage and blitzes. He had to. His health was at stake.

"I got the worst headaches that year," he says.

The next year, Pennington had a different kind of headache. His coach, Jim Donnan, bolted for Georgia, and Pruett was hired from Florida. But Pruett had an extra piece of luggage--quarterback Eric Kresser, who transferred from Florida to Marshall. Pennington, who led his team to a 12-3 record and a berth in the I-AA championship game as a freshman, was redshirted to make way for Kresser, who had one year of eligibility. Not the kind of treatment typically given to future NFL stars.

"He could have moped and sulked," Pruett says. "But he didn't. He went out there, practiced, lifted weights and came back the next year ready to play."