WINONA LAKE – Chloe Pridgen has a whole different view of the word ‘traveling’ when it comes to her life.

It would be easy to cite ‘traveling’ as a basketball term surrounding the Grace College freshman, a forward for the Lady Lancer basketball program. But the traveling Pridgen has done in the past five years have been worth a lifetime of stories.

Pridgen originally grew up in Warsaw and picked up the game of basketball like most everyone in Indiana does at a young age. First working the hardcourt at Jefferson Elementary and then Lakeview Middle School, Pridgen was part of a unique group of basketballers in Warsaw. Part of ‘the sweep’ as Pridgen referred to it, the seventh and eighth grade teams at Lakeview won both the boys and girls basketball titles, and she couldn’t have been more in love with the game.

Who wouldn’t be when heading into high school you would be playing in a class with Jennifer Walker-Crawford, Lindsay Baker and Melanie Holladay, which would eventually go on to play in the semi-state their senior season? Everything was working out well, that is, until Chloe’s dad, Charles, got a phone call from the United States Army.

“In eighth grade, my dad reenlisted in the Army, that was the worst thing ever,” Chloe said.

In what is a psychological nightmare for a teenager, and maybe not too far off of the worst thing ever for someone heading into high school, the Pridgen family were uprooted from Warsaw and headed for El Paso, Texas. A hefty 1,579 miles away according to Google Maps, but a lifetime away from the life Chloe had known. Starting over in a new place, not knowing anyone, not knowing the town, and really having to hit the reset button, Chloe wasn’t sure what to do.

“El Paso was crazy, it was definitely unsafe in some parts,” Chloe said, referring to the border issues and Juarez just across the border, notorious for its gangs and violent culture. “My freshman year, the talent at the school for basketball was good, but they didn’t have the knowledge of the game like Indiana does. I really missed home.”

With her parents unsure of how schooling and basketball were mixing at Chapin High School, Chloe was homeschooled her sophomore year. Taken again out of an environment and told to adjust. After a year, she was allowed to go back to Chapin for her junior year. As far as basketball went, having missed her sophomore year, she wasn’t allowed to play varsity, so she learned another set of lessons playing with the junior varsity as a junior.

It was her senior year that Chloe shined, joining what she dubbed as the ‘Big Three’ with Jada Ellis and Bobbi Bullitt. Having current Baylor University star Kristina Higgins’ legacy in 2012 to uphold, the Big Three led Chapin in 2013 to District and Bi-District championships before losing in the state Area tournament.

Chloe, again, was riding high. Senior year was a blast, prom was coming. Then, dad again got another call from Uncle Sam.

“January of my senior year, my dad got a call again and he was being sent to Germany to be a chaplain,” Chloe said. “I stayed until March to finish basketball. After that, I left for Germany.”

The Pridgen’s now weren’t just moving across country, they were moving across the big pond and six time zones. To Wiesbaden, in fact, where Charles would become an Army chaplain at a US base and was told he would be there for three years. Now, with just a couple months left in her senior year, Chloe wasn’t just adjusting to new surroundings, but now a new language, new rules, new food. And it was yet another twist in her growing saga.

“Texas, I was deflated,” Chloe said of the initial move. “I eventually got comfortable there. But Germany was completely different. I had to learn a lot of things, and a lot of it was in German. It took me a long time to figure out how to say anything.”

Chloe’s favorite saying in German was, naturally, “Sprechen sie Englisch?” hoping someone would say, “Yes” in return. As she became more involved in life in Germany, her athletic skills continued to churn. Wanting to play basketball in college, and having an offer on the table from Eastern New Mexico University, Chloe continued to work on her game. Then, one night, she felt a calling.

“I just had this feeling like I needed to see if Grace wanted me, and I called coach Blum, but didn’t hear back from him,” Chloe said. “I wrote him and told him my life story, and he wrote back. He asked for videos and talked to my old coaches. I felt like I was supposed to be going there.”

Chloe arrived to campus with an offer from Grace to play basketball, and again, needed to readjust. Life on campus is different than life in high school, but this would be the refresher she desired. She was back home, again, in Indiana.

“I definitely was scared, I didn’t know what to expect,” Chloe said of returning to Kosciusko County. “My coach in El Paso told me it’s not going to be easy, but I needed to expect it to be difficult. We did a lot of running in Texas. And we did a lot of running here. From that first scrimmage on, I felt much more comfortable.”

The forward for the Lady Lancers has played in 30 games this season, starting 10, averages about 14 minutes per game, is third on the team in rebounds (113) and has scored 107 points heading into the tournament. While not a statistical force, Chloe has found a new home with her teammates and the Grace program.

But, once classes end in May, it’s the first ticket back to Wiesbaden for the summer, but then right back to campus next fall. Why not?

“Thank God for Skype,” Chloe said of keeping in touch with her family back in Germany. “The phone is not the same, and the first week back here was tough. I just trusted God, and I feel like this is the right thing for me. Family is a big thing for me, and I’m dealing with it pretty well. This is all part of God’s plan.”

Chloe and her Lady Lancer teammates will face Lee (Tenn.) in the first round of the NCCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Wednesday night at the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center on the campus of Grace College. The game is scheduled to take place at approximately 5:30 p.m.