Mari-Rae Sopper’s last email to her family and friends read: “NEW JOB – NEW CITY – NEW STATE- NEW LIFE.” That’s where she was headed when she boarded American Airlines Flight 77 at Dulles Airport on September 11, 2001. She was on her way to the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) to the job of her dreams – Women’s Gymnastics Coach.
Gymnastics was Sopper’s favorite sport and she had always wanted to be a collegiate gymnast coach but a master’s degree is required. She got it but there were no openings when she graduated so she went into law. She went on with her life always knowing she was someday going to come back to gymnastics as it was her passion and she always kept one foot in it. Sopper graduated from William Fremd High School in Palatine, Illinois, in 1984. She was a gymnast in high school and was honored as the Illinois Outstanding Senior Gymnast in Illinois. Entering Iowa State University she continued her gymnastics during the four years she was there and received an athletic scholarship for her final three years when she was voted Iowa State’s Most Valuable Gymnast in her senior year (1988) and earning a degree in Exercise Science. She then earned a Master’s degree in Athletic Administration from North Texas and later a law degree from University of Denver College of Law in 1996. While studying in Colorado she was an assistant coach at the Colorado Gymnastics Institute.
In 1996 she joined the Navy and moved to Washington, DC, where she joined the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corp (JAG) as a Lieutenant defending sailors in their military trials and appellate court. While in the Navy she continued her gymnastics association as an assistant coach and choreographer for the U.S. Naval Academy’s women’s gymnastics team where she was well known for her beautifully choreographed floor routines. She served in the Navy until 2000 and once had an opportunity to bring a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Concerning this matter a fellow attorney wrote: “Many lesser attorneys would have sought the fame of arguing a case in the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of the negative effects such was likely to have both on the specific client and other’s accused of crimes. Mari-Rae instantly knew what was the right thing to do which deprived her of an opportunity to appear before the Supreme Court. That case has had an impact on every death penalty case in the United States and also every military court-martial thereafter.”
Upon leaving the Navy, Sopper took a position as a lawyer with a Washington law firm but continued in her pursuit of a gymnastics coaching position by applying all around the country for just such an opportunity. In 2001, upon learning of the open position for a Women’s Gymnastics Coach at UCSB, she eagerly applied and was accepted. That fateful morning when American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and purposefully crashed into the Pentagon she was journeying to her new position where she was scheduled to begin her work on September 12th. Sopper’s friends have described her as “passionate, bright, enthusiastic, perfectionist, generous, determined, disciplined, courageous, tolerant, unique, beautiful, talented, trusting, nonjudgmental and full of ideas.” Her ashes have been interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Submitted by CDR Roy A Mosteller, USNR (Ret)
