While a lot of good athletes have passed through our area, few have been able to make it professionally.

You can count them on one hand.

Ashland’s Brandon Webb has made it the biggest, winning the 2006 National League Cy Young Award and finishing runner-up for baseball’s top pitching award in 2007 and 2008 with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Webb, who has been shutdown by a shoulder injury this season, was a star almost since he began his major league career in 2003. And at only 30 years old, he likely has more big seasons ahead of him.

This past weekend, two more former area stars made some news on the professional sports front.

Julie Ditty played on the grandest stage in tennis, the U.S. Open, in both singles and doubles. She was eliminated in singles during the qualifier but advanced to the second round in doubles, where she is a top 100 player internationally, before losing to the No. 12 seeds.

The 30-year-old Ditty has won a record 35 ITF circuit titles — nine singles and 26 doubles — and competed at Wimbledon, the Australian Open, the French Open and the U.S. Open.

Ditty was named to the United States Fed Cup for their February 2009 match against Argentina after Bethanie Mattek withdrew from an injury; she played doubles with Liezel Huber. They would win the decisive match for Team USA 6-2, 6-3.

That’s all big stuff.

Now you can add another former area star to the list of athletes being paid to play.

Chris Jennings, who led Fairview High School’s football team with huge seasons in 2002 and 2003, was signed to the Cleveland Browns practice squad on Monday.

While that doesn’t guarantee him getting into an NFL game, he is getting paid to practice with the Browns. And he’s only an injury away from potentially being put on the Browns’ roster in 2009.

It was always Jennings dream to play in the NFL. He went two years to junior college before signing with Arizona and playing two seasons. Jennings went undrafted by signed as a free agent with the Browns in the spring of 2008. He didn’t make the cut, but didn’t quit dreaming.

Jennings was impressive in a preseason stint with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, making that team and then promptly being put on injured reserve on a week-to-week basis. When the Alouettes released him on Aug. 15, the Browns decided to give the 23-year-old Jennings another look.

He did enough to make it to the last day of cuts and the Browns put him on waivers. But when his name cleared, they quickly signed him to the practice squad – a show of good faith that they liked what they saw in a brief audition.

Jennings shouldn’t give up on the dream. He needs to keep doing whatever the Browns want him to do.

He proved in preseason that he can be a versatile player, both as a running back, receiver and special teams player. That’s the type of player NFL teams want on their roster.

It’s a small window of opportunity. Former Ashland star Arliss Beach knows that well. He was poised to make the 53-man roster of the Green Bay Packers a few years ago before suffering a badly timed high ankle sprain that relegated him to Injured Reserve.

Making it professional sports takes a little bit of everything – talent, timing and patience. The financial rewards are great and the work to get there, and then stay there, grueling.

But the above examples at least show us that dreams can come true.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.