[Old School Hound]

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.

Was Sean related in any way to Paula Pennington? Big Paula was something else to watch. Big girl with big skills. Paula was the Immovable Object  AND  the Irresistible force !!!