Athletes - Bill Kenney

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	Athletes - Bill Kenney

William Patrick "Bill" Kenney (born January 20, 1955) is a retired quarterback who spent 9 years in the National Football League with the Kansas City Chiefs from 1980 to 1988 and a former politician who spent 8 years as a Missouri State Senator.

High school/college

Kenney was born in San Francisco and graduated from San Clemente high school in 1973. He originally received a scholarship to play at Arizona State University but transferred to small Saddleback College after one season. After graduating from Saddleback, a two year junior college, he spent the remainder of his college career at the University of Northern Colorado.

NFL

Kenney was given the "honor" of being named Mr. Irrelevant in 1978 when he was drafted by the Miami Dolphins. The award traditionally is given to the last selection of the draft; Kenney earned the award as the second-to-last selection when the last player taken suffered a back injury and failed to report to camp. He was cut from the Dolphins at the end of training camp, but he had more success two years later, when he made the Kansas City Chiefs roster as the backup to Steve Fuller. He ended up starting games late in the year because of an injury to Fuller and did acceptably well. His late season performance helped him to take over the starting job for good in 1981.

After an average 1982 season, Kenney was in line to be replaced by Todd Blackledge, whom the Chiefs drafted as part of the vaunted Quarterback class of 1983. Kenney responded by having a breakout season, setting team records for passing yards (4,348) and completions (346) in a season; the latter was also good enough to lead the NFL. Kenney earned a Pro Bowl berth that season, and is the only Mr. Irrelevant to have been selected to one.

He didn't come close to matching his 4,000-yard output over the next four seasons, but he did enough to prevent Blackledge from starting when he was healthy (in 1984, he missed 7 weeks due to a thumb injury). He eventually gave up his starting job in 1988 when the Chiefs traded for Steve DeBerg. Kenney was released after failing to throw a touchdown pass in 114 attempts that season. He left the Chiefs as the second most prolific passer in team history behind Hall of Famer Len Dawson. He has been passed in most passing categories since then by Trent Green; Green also broke Kenney's single season record for passing yards in 2004.

In 1989, he signed with the Washington Redskins to be the third quarterback behind Mark Rypien and Stan Humphries. He did not appear in any games with the 'Skins, however, and he retired after the season.

Politics

Kenney took up residency in Kansas City after his retirement. He turned his attention to politics in this time, and in 1994, he successfully ran as a Republican to represent the Kansas City area in the Missouri State senate.

In 2001, Kenney became the floor leader of the Senate, and held the position for two years. He left the Senate afterwards due to term limits, and retired from politics altogether as a result.

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