National Football Foundation

Chad Pennington competed in the classroom with the same ferocity that made him Marshall’s all-time leading passer, and his competitive fire produced three consecutive Mid-American Conference Championships for the team while giving him a 3.83 GPA as a journalism major.
 
A two-time First-Team Academic All-American, Pennington was named the 1999-2000 CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year and was a finalist for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. On the field, he completed 433 passes for 4,006 yards and 38 touchdowns in 1999, leading the Herd to a perfect 13-0 season.
 
The Knoxville, Tennessee, native was an All-MAC First-Team and Offensive Player of the Year selection as well as a finalist for the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award and John Unitas Golden Arm Award.
 
Pennington set school records in several passing categories and established an NCAA season-record for most touchdown passes (24) from a passer to a single receiver (Randy Moss), breaking the previous mark of 19. He finished his career at Marshall with 1,712 completions for 13,143 yards and 115 touchdowns.
 
Selected by the New York Jets as the 18th overall pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, Pennington played seven seasons with the Jets, leading them to the playoffs three times. He subsequently signed with the Miami Dolphins, taking them from a 1-15 record in 2007 to an 11-5 showing in 2008 and their first playoff appearance since 2001.
 
Pennington retired from the NFL in 2011, but he has remained active with the league as a transition coach for retiring players and as a consultant on the Legends Community program.
 
Ever loyal to his alma mater, Pennington serves on Marshall’s Board of Governors, and he was inducted into Marshall’s W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame in 2016.
 
Pennington and his wife, Robin, founded the 1st and 10 Foundation, which seeks to build stronger communities and improve the quality of life in West Virginia, Tennessee and the New York Metropolitan areas.
 
In 2017, Pennington was named the head football coach at the Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky, which restarted its high school football program after more than 40 years. He led the team to the playoffs in 2020 while coaching his son, Cole, who has committed to play quarterback at Marshall in 2022.