Heights’ Brent Pennington wins National Football Foundation’s Scholar-Athlete Award

By RICHIE HALL
Brent Pennington has been a familiar face for Hamilton Heights over the past four years, making numerous contributions to the Huskies both athletically and academically.
And while everyone at Heights knows about Pennington, now so does the entire state of Indiana. Pennington was one of the recipients of the National Football Foundation’s Scholar-Athlete Award. In order to receive the award, a nominee must excel in three different categories, each of which carries a different weight:
Outstanding Academic Achievement (40 percent)
Outstanding Football Ability, Performance and Attitude (40 percent)
Outstanding in Campus Leadership and Excellent Citizenship (20 percent)
“It’s nice that over the four years of high school that I got some recognition for not only being an athlete, but also succeeding in school,” said Pennington. “It’s harder than a lot of people think to be a student-athlete. I can’t thank everybody enough for giving me this award. Everybody at Heights, all my coaches, all my teachers. I’m just very grateful for it.”
In the academic achievement part of the award, a 3.25 grade-point average or better is recommended for a nominee. Pennington went above and beyond that standard, as he finished with a GPA of 4.1.
“I took a lot of hard classes,” said Pennington. “That certainly helps the GPA. I took a lot of AP (Advanced Placement) classes. I think out of the seven classes we take, six of them were either AP or college credit.”
Those classes were indeed difficult, but Pennington believes they were worth it. “They helped me a lot and challenged me for sure,” he said.
Pennington was a four-year player for the Huskies football team. After playing on the freshman team his first year, he was originally told he would play quarterback, even though he said he never played that position in his life.
“Then I got switched to play defense,” said Pennington. “I started at safety and wide receiver my sophomore year. From there, it was the same thing my junior and senior year. I loved everything about it.”
Heights football coach Jon Kirschner nominated Pennington for the award, noting that he was the first Huskies player in several years to receive it.
“I was very honored to have gotten the opportunity to be able to nominate one of my student-athletes for an award that I think embodies all aspects of what it means to be a student-athlete,” said Kirchner.
The coach said that he worked with Pennington in just about every facet of education and sports available.
“I taught Brent in Geography, APC (Advanced Physical Conditioning) and AP Macroeconomics,” said Kirschner. “As the junior class sponsor, Brent was my Class President who was in charge of planning and orchestrating several school functions for the greater school community including prom. Finally, I had the opportunity to coach Mr. Pennington all four years of his playing career. In short, for four years Brent lived, ate and breathed Husky football. All he ever wanted was to leave Husky Football better than he found it.
“Brent was a three-year starter for us as a wide receiver and safety. Brent has always been considered a leader by his peers on and off the field. His senior year he was elected as a co-captain by his teammates. Athletic accomplishments aside, he just recently finished in the top 10 percent of class academically. If you were to take an in-depth look at Mr. Pennington’s time at Hamilton Heights you would see someone on and off the field who bled orange and white!”
Pennington is soon headed for Purdue University, where he plans to study civil engineering. He also will be playing intermural sports in basketball, football and baseball.
“Other than that, I’m going for strictly academics,” said Pennington.
Pennington also talked about the value of hard work, both on and off the field, saying “you’ll learn a lot of life lessons in both, and don’t strictly depend on sports to get you through it. Academics will take you further than you’ll ever know.”
Also, don’t every forget where you came from. Pennington said he will never forget where he’s from, “and that is Arcadia, Indiana.”