Chad Pennington leads Kentucky high school football team that was shutdown for 40 years to state title

The former NFL quarterback guided Sayre to the Class 1A state championship on Friday afternoon

Jets QB Chad Pennington during game against the Giants at the Meadowlands Aug. 26, 2005. Giants won the game15-14. / Frank Becerra Jr / USA TODAY NETWORK

From 1977 to 2017, Sayre High School (Kentucky) didn't field a football program of any sort.

Enter former NFL quarterback Chad Pennington, who played in the league from 2000-2010, to try and revive the Spartans football team that had taken a nearly half a century long hiatus from fielding a team.

On Friday afternoon, everything came full circle for Sayre when they faced Raceland for the KHSAA Class 1A state championship. Pennington navigated the Spartans to a 27-22 victory, completing a full turnaround for a program that wasn't even around just over five years ago.

The former professional passer helped start up the football program at Sayre in 2018, building it up from scratch. From there, the Spartans continued to make strides in getting to the point of being a state championship program. Friday was a culmination of everything built by Pennington and the folks at Sayre.

Pennington, 48, who was drafted by the New York Jets in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft, has come to the school and produced some pretty good players at that. A couple of the players are his own sons, Cole and Luke, with the latter being the starting quarterback for the Spartans this past season.

During Pennington's 11 seasons in the NFL, the signal caller threw for 17,823 yards and 102 touchdowns while winning the Comeback Player of the Year Award twice.

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-- Andy Villamarzo | villamarzo@scorebooklive.com | @sblivesports