American football player
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| Position: | Offensive tackle | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | (1958-02-15) February 15, 1958 (age 66) Aberdeen, Maryland, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 277 lb (126 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Aberdeen | ||||||||
| College: | Penn State | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1980 / round: 2 / pick: 50 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
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Irvin Lee Pankey (born February 15, 1958) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive lineman for 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), mainly for the Los Angeles Rams. He played college football as a tight end and offensive tackle for the Penn State Nittany Lions and was a team captain in 1979. He attended Aberdeen High School in Aberdeen, Maryland.
Personal life
During his playing career at Penn State, he reached out to Betsy Sailor, a student who had been raped by then-Penn State player Todd Hodne in 1978, and had experienced harassment after having testified against Hodne at his trial. In a 2022 ESPN story on Hodne, who would sexually assault nearly a dozen other women before being convicted of murder, Sailor recalled Pankey telling her, "I just wanted to let you know that I was in the courtroom today and I listened to what you had to say. And I believe every word that you said. And, you will never have to be afraid, or be alone again. I will be by your side." Pankey and Sailor would lose contact after they graduated from Penn State, but would be reunited while the ESPN story was being researched.
Pankey has twin sons who played college football for Oregon State; Keith Pankey played linebacker, and his brother, Kevin, was a tight end. He has a daughter, Kiley, who attended Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia, California. Pankey served as a professor and offensive line coach at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. Pankey also helps out at football camps such as Linemen Inc.
References
- Junod, Todd; Lavigne, Paula (April 11, 2022). "Untold". ESPN.com. Retrieved April 12, 2022.
- ^ "Sporting News - Beyond the Score". Sporting News. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
| Los Angeles Rams 1980 NFL draft selections | |
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 | This biographical article relating to an American football offensive lineman born in the 1950s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
- 1958 births
- Living people
- People from Aberdeen, Maryland
- Sportspeople from the Baltimore metropolitan area
- Players of American football from Harford County, Maryland
- American football offensive tackles
- Penn State Nittany Lions football players
- Los Angeles Rams players
- Indianapolis Colts players
- 20th-century American sportsmen
- American football offensive lineman, 1950s birth stubs