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Title: Dolphins' new signal-caller is driven to succeed Post by: DolFan619 on August 14, 2008, 12:45:55 am http://www.miamiherald.com/588/story/641295.html
Dolphins' new signal-caller is driven to succeed BY JEFF DARLINGTON Miami Herald He didn't have the money. He only had the determination. Sixteen years ago, Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington walked into a Tennessee gym an hour from his home, searching for a man he had heard could help him overcome doubts about his athleticism. ''He walked right up to me,'' said Charles Petrone, who was more interested in training NFL athletes than some gangly high school sophomore. 'I told him, `I'll tell you what, kid. Show up here at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We'll work from there.' '' But Petrone never set his alarm clock that night, figuring Pennington wouldn't make it, the same way so many others in his life have figured the quarterback also wouldn't come through. What Petrone failed to realize, though, was this: Some people just won't go away. The following morning, Petrone was awaken by a phone call. It was the kid. ''I'm in bed, and he tells me he's at the gym, sitting on a couch waiting for me,'' Petrone recalled. ``He'd woken up at 4 a.m., and drove an hour in pitch black from his house in La Follette (Tenn.). I knew right then I had something special.'' The Dolphins, who recently signed Pennington after the Jets cut him in favor of Brett Favre last week, are now hoping they, too, have stumbled into a resilient force who won't let the doubts cause him to go away quietly. ALWAYS RESILIENT It is two decades later, and his mother's eyes are scanning the wall of a hallway in this Tennessee school, where dozens of picture frames have been hung to remember the athletes that have come and gone. ''Did you find him?'' said Denise Pennington, her southern drawl as thick as a playbook. ``Yup, there he is! Skinny, skinny, skinny as a rail! Couldn't even recognize 'im, he looks so darn young.'' Pennington always has been resilient, his mother said. He always has been tough-nosed, even if his intellectual nature has often led some to think otherwise. Just as Petrone realized his new student was special, others over the years also have watched as Pennington handled aspects of his life -- on and off the field -- with the same relentless attitude. In 2006, he had spent several nights on the floor of a hospital room as his father, Elwood, fought for his life after a heart attack shook the family. It was his father, a high school football coach, who instilled in him a strength of soul. But Pennington fought through. SPLITTING HIS TEAM Three years before, in the midst of a breakout season with the Jets, Pennington helped his wife care for her father, who was diagnosed with leukemia. He split time between the hospital and the practice field, something he still doesn't like to discuss. Again, Pennington fought through. Battles like these made Pennington's battles within the game seem small. Fighting through adversity helped Pennington learn how he wanted to approach the adversity on the field that he would face during his tenure with the Jets. 'Every time before a game, he calls me and says, `No matter what you hear, no matter what they say, don't forget, the most important thing to us as a family is our character and our integrity.' '' Denise said. 'I always say, `Who raised you? Daddy didn't do all of this by himself, you know.' '' Pennington's warnings often came as a result of an often-critical New York fan base, which clearly began to tire of the inconsistencies that faced Pennington as a result of numerous injuries and questionable arm strength. Still, it was hard to argue certain aspects of his game. GREAT WORK ETHIC Pennington never had a problem with work ethic. He never had any issues with the intellectual side of football, either. His parents recognized those qualities as soon as a unique photographic memory became apparent. At an absurdly early age, he attended football practices with his father. Pennington easily memorized the names of every player and what jersey number each wore. It wasn't long before the same quality translated to the field. ''Chad is just so smart,'' said Webb School coach David Meske, who coached Pennington in high school. ``You'd tell him once, and he'd get it.'' Throughout his career, Pennington -- a Rhodes Scholar finalist -- has been praised for grasping the mental side of the game. Bobby Pruett, who became the coach at Marshall after Pennington's freshman year, still says Pennington is ``the best leader I've ever been around.'' But there were other reasons why his parents held him back a year in the eighth grade and reasons why Pruett would redshirt Pennington as a sophomore. It was the physical side of the game. Pennington, although accurate enough to fit a football through the head of a needle, didn't have the elite athleticism in other areas to match his elite nature. ''I had to rely on [my mind] until my body caught up with me,'' Pennington said. ``And even today, I think my edge is mentally. At this level, you can't stay the same. You have to constantly find an edge to be better than your opponent and that's where I try to find it.'' SAME OLD QUESTIONS Pennington, no longer a sophomore in high school but a 32-year-old veteran who most recently was in a fight for his starting job with the Jets, is again facing the same questions. By being cut by the Jets in favor of Brett Favre, which gave the Dolphins a chance to sign Pennington last week. But why cut a player who is the most accurate career passer (65.6 percent) of any quarterback with more than 1,500 attempts in NFL history? Why cut a locker-room leader and one of the best decision-makers in the league? Again, it wasn't his brain. It apparently was his body. First, his shoulder failed on him, requiring two surgeries in 2005. Last year, it was his ankle. Then his hips. Each issue raised more questions, produced more critics. It didn't help that Pennington's arm already was notoriously weak. ''I spent a lot of time this offseason really taking a look at the criticisms of me as a professional and seeing what I can do in bettering myself,'' Pennington said. CATCHING UP That led him back to Petrone, who in 1992 helped Pennington grow from a gangly 172-pound kid with a size-16 shoe into a player with a 234-pound frame and 11 percent body fat. The problem was, once his body finally caught up to his mind, Pennington's health as an NFL player handicapped him again. Pennington and Petrone got to talking, just like so many years ago, and decided it was time to return to their roots -- only this time, it would be even more intense. ''I hated to see him getting benched,'' Petrone said, referring to last season's decision in New York to demote Pennington after a 1-7 start. ``I said, `You're much better than that. Let's bring it back to 2003 when you [excelled]. Let's rock it.' ``So we put together a program.'' It wasn't just any player-to-trainer relationship. Earlier this year, Petrone moved in with Pennington for seven days at a time every other week in the quarterback's offseason home in Sarasota with his wife and two children. He would monitor his sleep, his diet and his fitness. And when Petrone returned to Knoxville, he and Pennington continued to communicate through a 360-degree web camera set up at his gym so they could go through workouts together. The goal was to get Pennington back to the same condition when he tested for the scouting combine before his rookie season in 2000. Incidentally, that was the same year in which Pennington was drafted by former Jets personnel guru Bill Parcells, who is now the Dolphins' vice president of football operations. ''We wanted to make him the same guy he was in 2000,'' Petrone said. ``He's real close. And for his age and weight, he's comparable to that. As we fire his system back up, you're not going to see a slow Chad. ``He just recently started to feel like his arm is stronger than ever, and his hips are stronger than ever.'' LIKE A KID AGAIN With a new team and a new outlook, you could say Pennington feels like a kid again. But you might not realize how true the sentiment seemed. Just as he was as a sophomore, Pennington realizes his mind remains his best asset. His leadership. His decisiveness. His accuracy. And that photographic memory, the one that helped him memorize the names of all those players and all those jersey numbers? After one practice Monday, Dolphins tight end Anthony Fasano said Pennington already seemed to know the names of everyone on his new team. Pennington might be older now. But it suddenly is very clear that some things never change. ''He was always a positive leader,'' Meske said. ``Everyone looked up to him. He treated the younger kids the way you'd want to be treated. He made people feel good about themselves. He took control of the football team.'' Now, Pennington will attempt to do the same. |