For most of his 71 years of life, Randy Penn was part of the Englewood High School community. He was a teacher, mayor, and chamber director. But most students remember him as Coach Penn. He passed away the first week in September 2020.

As construction on the new Pirate stadium at Englewood High School wrapped up in September 2020, members of the community brought up his name as the perfect person after which to name the stadium. The Englewood school board approved the name change the week of October 19, 2020.

Here is the last interview PirateTV was able to do with Mr. Penn. He spoke to students about his time at the helm of the football team:

(script for the video story) “In a dark corner of the Pirateer classroom, there is a box full of memories. They are newspapers dating back to the 1930s. Within the stacks, there are articles about the roller coaster ride that has been Pirate Football. In November of 1932, an article about a Pirate loss. Calling it a heartbreaking battle against Wheat Ridge. It would not be the story of the season. 

(nats) 1932, actually the years in 1932, 33, 34, Englewood was state champs three years in a row, 2 of those years they did not allow any points to be scored on them.” 

It was touch and go in 1934. The high school newspaper says their chance at a suburban league title was thrown away “by losing to Golden 6-0”. The pirates had a chance to tie for first in front of a record crowd. 

Jump ahead to December of 1937, “and the Pirates are back on top, crowned champions of colorado prep football. You have to remember that back then, there was probably only one league, not there are 5”. 

The article says 5,000 fans witnessed the class A championship game. 

We could go on and on… so could the gentleman who joined the PirateTV crew on this day. He is Randy Penn, an Englewood legend. 

“I taught in Englewood schools for 35 years, of which 22 years were at EHS.”

Penn is the Executive Director of the Greater Englewood Chamber and former Mayor of Englewood. He has made his mark in many ways including on the football field. 

“I was head football coach for 22 years also an assistant coach” 

His final record…. 172 wins, 67 losses. 

“As a head football coach, we were lucky enough to go to state playoffs 16 times, 4 times we got to the semis unfortunately I wasn’t good enough of a coach to take us to the finals. I wish I would have, but we had a great year.”

 He was an assistant coach with the Pirates the last time the team made it to the state playoffs. 

“The last year was 2013, coach graves was the coach we played Glenwood springs in the play-offs, we went in 2012 and 2013. 

Randy Penn began his teaching career in Englewood in 1981 and was an important part of the school district until 2008. remained with the district until 2008. In addition to football, he coached swimming and track. He served as Englewood’s mayor from 2011 through 2015 and then moved into leadership of the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce before retiring in spring 2019.