Defying the Odds
December 09, 2003 04:58 PM | General
December 9, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- With just one play John Pennington proved all of his doubters wrong. It came during an otherwise forgetful game two years ago against Tennessee-Chattanooga in the 2002 season opener. The Mountaineers were comfortably ahead 42-0 and Pennington was put in at wide receiver with the ball on UTC’s 33-yard line.
 |
|
| Junior wide receiver John Pennington proved everyone wrong by first making the team, then by making one of the biggest catches of the season. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) | |
He was instructed to run an out-an-up route. As he started up field he had the feeling backup quarterback Danny Embick may look to him for a deep pass. Backups don’t become starters by throwing short passes in mop up roles. You fire it downfield and make something happen.
Embick did just that, tossing a perfect spiral that lofted high over the head of the defensive back but with the right touch to keep Pennington in bounds.
John saw it, lifted his arms, and pulled the ball in for a touchdown. John Pennington, the guy who has no business playing Division I-A college football, had just scored a touchdown for the West Virginia Mountaineers. His name would forever be etched in the WVU record books.
Take that, all of those who told him he was either too small or too slow to play college football. Take that, all of those who felt he should have played baseball instead.
Just ask Pennington and he will tell you. Realistically there is no explanation why or how he began the 2003 season as a starter on a football team playing in a BCS conference. Too short and too slow – there were no measurable attributes that could possibly make him stand out. Line him up with any other kid and he would surely be one of the last players taken in a pickup game.
But what this 21-year-old West Virginia native has always possessed is the will and desire to prove wrong everyone who said he could never make it.
Once he made his TD catch against Tennessee-Chattanooga and after trotting off of the field he had something remarkable to say to wide receiver coach Steve Bird -- something the 16-year veteran coach will never forget.
“I can die a happy man,” Pennington told him.
The coach replied, “You don’t need to be just satisfied doing that.”
Despite the elation John felt at that moment, Bird made it a point to gently remind him that his catch against UTC didn’t necessarily have to be defining moment of his career. There could be more.
Since then Pennington has kept up with the faster, taller wide receivers and has even earned a spot in West Virginia’s eight-man rotation. But John’s road to the field did not begin with that catch. His teeth were cut on those twisting, turning, West Virginia country roads that helped pave his future long before his days in Morgantown.
Despite his size, John Pennington was always one of best ballplayers in the neighborhood growing up in Charleston, W.Va.
His childhood friend Nathan Forb remembers Pennington from their days playing little league baseball. Pennington was the one always throwing harder, straighter, and hitting the ball further than anyone else. Forb remembers John as the one always outside waiting for somebody to play against -- somebody to beat.
It appeared baseball was going to Pennington’s calling.
Yet his plans took a detour during his sophomore year of high school. And it was simply by chance. He toyed around with football in junior high, playing quarterback and running back. But he jumped at the chance to play wide receiver for George Washington High School when he found out there were openings at the position for the upcoming season. He told his friends that his goal was to be the team’s starting wide receiver.
“We told him there was no way,” said Forb.
Remember, too small and too slow.
But Pennington was undeterred. He went on to start his sophomore season and soon became one of the most decorated players in school history. Not only was he a three-year starter at wide receiver, but he was also a three-year starter on defense and played on almost every special team.
By his junior year he was named to the second all-state offensive team. His senior year he racked up 67 catches for 1,087 yards and eight touchdowns in 11 games while also recording seven interceptions as a defensive back. He was named first team all-state on defense in 1999.
But ask anyone about his senior year and they will tell you that what he brought to the team was more than just athletic ability. His leadership skills proved irreplaceable on a team that was picked to go 2-8 but instead finished 7-4 and earned its first playoff berth in 11 years. According to Forb, Pennington even motivated his fellow captains to work harder.
“He just made you want to win. He rubbed off on you, he really did,” said Forb.
Pennington also kept his baseball career going, too. Some still believe his true calling is on the diamond. A quick check of his senior season stats makes a compelling argument: he batted .511 with eight home runs and 43 RBIs.
On the pitching mound he struck out 63 batters in 50 innings. He was a two-time first-team all-state pick both his junior and senior seasons. Before his senior year, he was invited to a showcase baseball camp in Vero Beach, Fla., with some of the nation’s best players. He managed to hold his own at the camp and he was selected to the high school All-American team.
“I remember John being a smart player with a great work ethic,” said West Virginia baseball coach Greg Van Zant. “He wasn’t particularly fast but he was pretty athletic. We didn’t have any scholarship money left at the time and we invited him to walk-on. He also had an invitation to walk-on for the football team as well.”
In the spring of 2000, Pennington faced a decision that would affect the next four years of his life. While most of his friends were preparing for college, Pennington was still trying to decide what school he wanted to go to, and which sport best suited him. He got several calls and offers from Division II schools for both sports, but he knew that Division II was not for him. He was going for the big prize and his pot of gold happened to be a little town up north dissected by Interstates 68 and 79.
Like many other Mountain State kids Pennington always dreamed of playing football for the West Virginia Mountaineers, running out of the tunnel in front of 60,000 fans and playing against the Pitts, the Syracuses and the rest of the teams in the Big East. He had seen so many great players don the Gold and Blue uniform and that’s exactly what he wanted to do.
But there was no way a 5-foot-9, 165-pound kid with a slow forty time was ever going to get a football scholarship to play wide receiver at WVU. Donnie Young, then West Virginia’s recruiting coordinator, eventually invited Pennington to walk-on late that summer.
“The second they offered me a chance to play football I had to give it a shot,” said Pennington
And that was that. End of discussion.
He got his chance to play for the school he had come up to see many times before, watching players like Zach Abraham, a walk-on receiver himself from Wheeling who happened to make a pretty big catch in a game against Pitt back in 1994.
Pennington could maybe see himself doing that one day.
When John made up his mind to play for the Mountaineers, some of his friends thought he was nuts. There was just no way he could ever make the team.
“We were supportive to him but behind his back we were just saying that we didn’t think he was big enough,” said Forb. “That’s D-I, he’s not tall enough or fast enough. But we thought baseball was a lock. We thought baseball was his best sport.”
The negative impression he got when he told his friends of his decision only stiffened his resolve. He was going to make the team and somehow, some way, he was going to get on the field.
“Most of the people from my hometown would tell me that maybe I would get on the team,” said Pennington. “People have told me how I couldn’t do stuff before and it kind of just makes me mad. I wanted to prove everyone wrong.”
His first year was spent toiling at the bottom of the depth chart. If you don’t do something profound, like making a big hit, catching a big pass, taking a big hit, or accidentally laying out the quarterback, it’s tough for walk-ons to get noticed.
West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez knew all about being a walk-on. He was once one himself playing for Don Nehlen at West Virginia in the early 1980s. Rich knew the best way to get noticed was to do something in practice, even if that meant putting a big hit on the star quarterback and enduring the wrath of the coaching staff. At least they’d know who he was.
When Rodriguez took the WVU job in the winter of 2000, Pennington’s goal was to make an impression on the new coach. After all, it was a clean slate and everyone was going to have to prove themselves all over again – the scholarship guys and the walk-ons.
His first mission was accomplished after spring practice when he joined about 20 other walk-ons invited to stick around during the summer for informal workouts.
“All of the coaches liked my hustle and me diving for balls,” said Pennington. “Anytime there was someone who didn’t know they were supposed to be in I would just run and jump in. I remembered from high school coaches telling me, ‘You have to make us play you.’ That’s what I tried to do. I’m going to make them play me. I’m going to get in there and make some plays.”
His plan worked. Soon the smallest wide receiver on the team was able to make one of the biggest impressions.
“The first spring he was here you would look down here and there is this little guy running and he’s catching balls down the middle of the field and he’s making big plays,” said Bird with a smile.
What really helped him through that first year of practice was the guidance of his parents Ernest and Rebecca. The support that they gave him helped keep his desire to play strong.
“It’s really mentally stressful and sometimes you look toward the future and say that you are never going to play and then you talk to your parents and they are positive about everything. It helps to have somebody to call and vent to,” said Pennington.
It was during Rodriguez’ first spring that proved to be the turning point for Pennington. He realized he could play with these guys. Coach Bird began calling him his “little pit-bull” because of his fierce mentality when blocking. It was blocking downfield during running plays that he found a way to stand out.
“I know that I have to put in the extra effort and it gets kind of annoying sometimes because I work so hard and I’m still not the go-to guy but I understand my role and they are better athletes,” said Pennington.
Sometimes Bird uses Pennington as an example of what a player can do if he works hard.
“You know when you take a test and everyone in the class does really badly but there is always one guy who messes up the curve because he did really well? John Pennington is that guy,” Bird once said.
Curve breaking is not only something Pennington does on the field. The accounting major is a member of the BIG EAST academic all-star team as well as the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll.
Pennington’s personality changes once he’s off the field. He’s just one of the guys. His wardrobe usually consists of one or two old, worn-out shirts, the same old broken-in jeans or old khaki shorts, and either shower sandals or tennis shoes. His partiality toward wearing the same old outfits over and over has earned him the unflattering nickname “Super Stank.” But Pennington doesn’t mind. In fact, the nickname just gives him more energy to keep pressing on.
John’s big moment came in the second quarter of this year’s Pitt game. The Mountaineers were trailing 24-17 late in the second quarter in a shoot-out with the nationally ranked Panthers. The football was sitting on the Pitt 28-yard line and it was fourth down. Three previous plays proved unsuccessful and the coaches were about out of ideas.
Then Rodriguez had a hunch. Instead of going for the first down and kicking the field goal, how about going for it all by throwing a long pass for a touchdown? What is there to lose?
Naturally the best candidate to catch the pass was 6-foot-5 Chris Henry, a physical specimen who by this time was developing into one of the country’s top, young wide receivers. Junior Miquelle Henderson was another reliable option.
But Rodriguez and Bird were thinking entirely out of the box. Why not put John Pennington in there and send him long? Who would suspect us to throw it to him?
As the play unfolded, Pennington broke down the near sideline where he was met stride-for-stride with a Pitt linebacker; so much for catching Pitt off guard.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” laughed Rodriguez.
Quarterback Rasheed Marshall lobbed a pass toward the back of the end zone where Pennington was running. Noticing the ball taking off a little bit and the Pitt defender off balance, Pennington made a break for the ball extending his arms as far as they could go to catch it -- just like he did dozens of times before in practice. The two players crashed to the ground and the stadium grew silent waiting for the result.
Then, Pennington jumped to his feet with the football in his right hand, the referee raised both arms signaling touchdown and West Virginia was an extra point away from tying Pitt at 24-all.
The catch gave West Virginia the momentum it needed going into the locker room and the team responded by completely dominating the Panthers in the second half on the way to a memorable 52-31 victory.
Pennington had made his big catch in a game that meant everything to West Virginians. Two weeks later, a John Pennington feature story appeared on ESPN.com during Thanksgiving for his unlikely ascent to the top of West Virginia’s depth chart.
Like Zach Abraham before him, now all those small, slow kids running around on the West Virginia dirt fields can dream of making the big catch for the West Virginia University Mountaineers just like John Pennington did against Pitt.
They couldn’t have picked a finer role model.
