Sydney Pennington played five years of softball and hardly knew of Barry Hinson.
Now, she owes her job to him.
Pennington, a former OSU softball star, and Hinson, a longtime college basketball coach, really met each other at a Cowboy golf tailgate before a football game. Knowing Hinson, they got to talking. He asked what she wanted to do now that softball was over, and Pennington mentioned real estate. Hinson, a man of many words, had just two for the former third baseman: Tina Darr.
Darr owns Stilly Homes, a real estate agency in Stillwater. Pennington set up a meeting at Panera that began with her asking Darr questions about where she should place her license and ended with a job offer.