True believer: On 9/11, Inverness' Mari-Rae Sopper was poised to fulfill her dream

Inverness native Mari-Rae Sopper, the Navy attorney turned college gymnastics coach killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, was a true believer.

Described as a breath of fresh air and an independent thinker, Sopper believed in people. She believed in causes, even ones seemingly lost. And she fought for both.

As a defense lawyer with the Judge Advocate General Corps, Sopper was convinced all her clients were innocent, said her mother, Marion Kminek.

Facing drug charges, one of those clients told Sopper he tested positive because he ate pizza with oregano the night before the test. Sopper wanted to believe him. No officer would jeopardize his career that way, she said.

"We had to laugh at how naive she was," recalled Kminek.

"She was an idealist," said Kminek, who commissioned the 2015 book "Within Her Grasp" to chronicle Sopper's life. "I always said, if the (Sept. 11) terrorists came back, I could see her saying, 'Now look, you don't want to do this' and trying to talk them out of it."

As an attorney she excelled. At Sopper's memorial service, a Navy colleague remembered her as an exceptional appellate lawyer. But that wasn't Sopper's passion. Gymnastics was.

She remained devoted to the sport her entire life, from her early days training with the Palatine Park District, to Fremd High School where she was athlete of the year and outstanding senior gymnast, to Iowa State University where, as a walk-on, she earned a gymnastics scholarship. While studying at the Denver University School of Law, she coached at the Colorado Gymnastics Institute. As a practicing attorney, she coached at George Washington University.

More than anything, she wanted to coach full time. In August 2001, she got the chance when the University of California Santa Barbara hired her as its head women's gymnastics coach for one year, after which the program would be terminated.

Sopper was not going to let that happen, Fremd coach Larry Petrillo recalled at her memorial service.

Dedicated to preserving gymnastics, she had already formulated recruiting and funding plans for UC Santa Barbara, said Petrillo, who believed Sopper would have prevailed.

That morning 20 years ago, Mari-Rae Sopper was on her way to her dream job in Santa Barbara - a believer until the very end.