The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Perrin Pennington

Perrin Pennington had a sign in her room while growing up in Athens, Georgia. It reminded her on a daily basis: Organize your life around your dreams and watch them come true.

Her dilemma: Which dream to pursue?

Her mom remembers the youth basketball coach pulling her aside and telling her, this is her sport. A day at the rock-climbing gym ended with the owner telling Pennington's mom, I'll make an exception and make her the youngest person on the team. She could be really good at it.

Every winter the family of four, two parents, two daughters, took a vacation to Colorado to hit the slopes, the girls going through ski school. And every winter, Pennington would be placed in a level lower than she had reached the winter before. Certainly, a girl from Georgia would regress, right?

She had an instructor, been there nearly a quarter of a century, had trained some of the best of the best. She approached Cary and Laura Pennington one day, tears in her eyes. "Could you move out here and let me train her?" she begged.

No one could believe she hadn't been raised in the mountains, had become as good as she was simply by stacking annual vacation upon annual vacation, a week here, a week there. She was a natural. At pretty much everything.

But this is a soccer story, about the girl who brought a deflated ball and pump everywhere the family traveled, so you already know how it plays out.

One of those trips was to Italy, to a small town where nobody spoke English. But they, too, loved the game, all those kids who kept showing up in the courtyard to join her, no matter the language barrier. The game spoke something they all understood.

"She was pretty good at all these other things, but what she wanted to do is soccer. The girl loves soccer," says her mom. "She has this energy and joy. Anything she chose to apply it to, she was going to succeed in. Soccer is what she chooses to do with it."

Her parents met while attending Furman, in Greenville, South Carolina. He was a true product of the South, born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, a place thick with family. She was from … pretty much all over.

She began in Florida, moved to Canada, then went along for the ride as her mom traveled from new city to new city, San Francisco for a few years, then something else, to set up another handful of Glamour Shots retail stores, with Charlotte, North Carolina, dutifully serving as the family's home base.

When the Penningtons, now married, set up in Augusta, she became him and he became her. She was ready to put down some real roots for the first time in her life, he was ready to travel and explore and seek adventure beyond what he'd known. "We flipflopped what we were raised with," she says.

Cardy arrived first, named after Laura's grandmother's maiden name. They were in Augusta, he was working until one day he decided he needed more education, graduate school up the road in Athens, at the University of Georgia, Bulldog central, he staying in a small apartment, mom and daughter behind.

Laura and Cardy were on their way home from Door County, Wisconsin, that slice of paradise enjoyed by her side of the family for generation after generation. Stop off in Athens on the way back to Augusta. Uh-oh.

It's late July. Their next child isn't going to be born until September. Perrin has her own plans. Enough waiting around. I'm coming, six weeks early. Not a good idea, the doctors told the Penningtons. They shouldn't expect her to make it, not at just four pounds and the odds stacked against her.

She pulls through, embraces everything that it required from her, pulled out of her, makes it her own for the rest of her life. It's the super power of the preemie. Perrin? It's French, a form of Pierre, which means rock. Fitting.

"Typical of her, came on her own schedule," her mom says. "I always tease her that she was determined to be born and raised an actual Athens Dawg."

The family needs to stay close to the hospital but they have time, preemies tending to be ready to go home near what would have been their due date. Not this one. They called the surprised parents a week later. This one? She woke up today and checked all the right boxes. She's ready to roll.

Mad dash to the store, to turn a small apartment into a home for four. They love it, all of it, decide to make Athens home for good. Dawgs 4 Life.

Sports come and go, soccer sticks as dad comes and goes, the technology development and consulting group he establishes now in demand, a contract here, a contract there, a few days away, a few days at home, the girls growing.

Cardy heads to Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wanting to be within a day's drive of home. Then "home" changes. A contract in Seattle, will take a year, flying back and forth, too much, an apartment is rented. Mom and daughter travel out for a visit. She is about to enter ninth grade.

It's beautiful, everyone agrees. We should move out here. Yeah, right! Except nobody laughs. "We looked at each other. Are we all serious about this? Should we try?" Laura says.

"The girls have always been up for an adventure. There was never a geographical boundary for them. We've always been big on learning by getting out and about." Sorry, Cardy! Visit when you can!

Soccer with Seattle Reign Academy, a revelation. Soccer in the South? Big and strong wins in the end. Here? "More technical, more soccer IQ-driven," Pennington says. "I always fit best in that style of play."

Uh-oh. Covid is here. And the apartment is small. The adventure gets cut short – who knows how long they would have remained? – the space of their home and openness of their property beckons. Georgia it is.

Back to the same house, the same style of play as before. Bummer. But what about that ODP team in Georgia that Pennington had been on? Hadn't most of them played for Tophat, one of the top clubs in the nation? Hadn't they all played the beautiful style of soccer she had found with Reign?

Hadn't they used the midfield as a weapon instead of treating it like flyover country, long balls just getting kicked forward over and over again, fingers crossed?

Mom, how about it? I know it's in Atlanta. I know studies show the average person driving in that city loses 74 hours of their life each year sitting in traffic. But we wouldn't have to go there every day, just most days. So, mom, how about it?

"She worked on me. It was pretty much a full-time job," says Laura, driver for those three hours, each way. "She trained four days a week. Even home games were away games for us."

Worth it? Oh, yeah. How about third place at GA nationals in the summer of 2021.

"There were some great clubs and coaches in Athens, but it had a little bit of a ceiling," says Laura. "Most of the players who are really driven end up driving. No pun intended.

"She knew what she wanted and was willing to give up everything to keep going in this sport. She has this crazy energy and joy for life and attacks every single day. What's my role in it? My role is to support the dream as best I can."

College coaches are watching, reaching out, trying to get her attention. She has her own idea. West is best. She goes on the offensive, reaches out to Montana. An email arrives, coach Chris Citowicki sees Tophat, knows what it would mean to break in with that club.

He sends his assistants to GA playoffs and immediately text messages from J. Landham and Ashley Herndon start hitting his phone. Everyone liked the video. Now they were seeing Pennington in the flesh. All those texts, compiled into four words: we want this kid. Okay, four more: we need this kid.

A meet-and-greet phone call goes for 45 minutes. Citowicki does his thing, Pennington wants in, wants to become a Grizzly. Before visiting? Okay, I'll visit.

"Perrin was very open to going wherever it took to find what she wanted," says Laura. "When she found Chris, Ashley and J. and the family feel of the team, she probably would have crossed an ocean if that's where they were."

A trip to ID camp is scheduled, dad and daughter time, but daughter thinks this is the place, the one, and can't mom come, too, just so she can see it, experience it, feel good about signing off on what daughter believes is about to happen, an offer, followed by a commitment?

Hard to tell which Pennington was more smitten. "By the end of those two and half days, we had all fallen in love, more than anywhere else we had visited," Laura says. They hung out with the Bentlers, the Dvoraks, went out for meals as one extended family.

"I thought, this is incredible. We were trying to hold back because we were getting a little attached. Gosh, I hope this is her choice."

Perrin, do you take this program to be your future, through highs and lows, for as long as your eligibility remains? I do. Hugs all around.

There is a Georgia state championship to be won as a senior, the breakthrough after semifinal appearances the previous two years. And there goes Cardy, off to SMU, straight from an undergraduate degree to a PhD program in bio statistics.

Perrin will get there, eventually, to law school, maybe a career as a sports agent, her schooling helping make her argument in the case Cardy vs. Perrin. The former was a cheerleader, claims it's a sport, just like soccer. The latter disagrees. This judge rules in favor of Perrin. Sorry, Cardy.

She appeals: She was hospitalized with rhabdomyolysis from her sport, summited Mount Kilimanjaro a month later. Please reconsider. No. A decision has been reached. It won't be changed.

Athens is left behind, the school she attended with Kirby Smart's kids (OMG KIRBY SMART). She arrives to find Mia Parkhurst, the former Georgia Bulldog, who was teammates with some Tophat players Pennington knows. An early, comforting in. They throw axes in preseason, name their team Dawgs.

The parents, they're empty-nesters but that just means the freedom to fly. "We're going to try to make it to most all of the games," Laura says. "We've traveled all these years to have a front-row seat to all this fun. I can't imagine we'd want to be anywhere else."

They love Missoula, Athens on a smaller scale. Grandparents will come. Cardy will get here. We hope, even after this article. They have connected the two places. "There is a little Griz Nation growing in Georgia," says Laura, "a little hot spot of Griz Nation growing in Oconee County, Georgia."

Perrin Pennington, who organized her life around her dreams and watched them come true, trailblazer. "I like that. I hope so," Laura says.

University of Montana Athletics

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Mia Parkhurst

Perrin Pennington

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