Penny Powell coached Women’s Tennis at MCC from 1975 to 2007. In her 22 years as a coach, the Thunderbirds won 13 Arizona Community College Athletic Conference championships with additional second- and third-place season finishes throughout the years. The Thunderbirds placed in the top three in the region more than 20 times, of which nine were championships.

Penny was honored as the 2000 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Junior College Coach of the Year in 2000 and was inducted into the NJCAA Women’s Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame in 2004. She served as president of the NJCAA Women’s Tennis Coaches Association for 12 years.

An athlete herself, Penny played tennis for Arizona State University. In 2013 she, with her daughter Leslie Tracy, received the U.S. Tennis Association Golden Slam Award for winning four national Super Senior Mother Daughter tennis tournaments in the same calendar year on the four different surfaces (indoors, grass, clay, hard courts). Her latest athletic pursuit is golf. She has played on some of the finest courses in Scotland and Ireland and is currently planning to play at Pebble Beach.