[Van Hagar]

Sean Pennington - Clay County

Could be off but believe he was all-state in at least football, basketball, and track.

  This is true. When he graduated, he was the all-time leader in passing yards in the state, since surpassed many times as teams have started throwing more, but still… An unbelievably gifted all-around athlete, Jerry Claiborne wanted him at UK, but his academics kept him from advancing his career. This was back in a time when colleges actually cared about academics as they related to the athletic programs.

That’s the story I heard as well. Virtually everyone in Clay County says he’s the greatest all-around athlete of all-time, and there have been a few here. I went to school with his son who was also a fantastic athlete.

It's hard to talk about Clay County and not mention Deshae Henson also. He was a freak athlete and also could put him in the Running Back slot as one of the best. I didn't know Sean, but no doubt heard everything about him. My memory serves me right I think he was breaking a lot of state records when he was QB ending his career as the Leader for many years. I'll say also at a time before the QB type offenses became as popular as they are today. That time period was I formation and run, run, run.

You are correct, Deshae was a tremendous running back, fast and powerful. And he was a good baseball player and pretty good basketball player. But Deshae was probably 5-9, 230 or so, while Sean was 6-5, 195 or so, could jump over the moon and super quick. He was all-state in basketball (one of the stars of Clay’s ‘’85 state runner-up team), he was a six-foot plus high jumper, and he held (and maybe still holds) the 100-meter record at Clay, I want to say 10.9. He gets the nod as the best all-around ever from Clay.