Kenny Chesney Makes a Surprise Visit to High School Pep Rally

Kenny Chesney shocked a gymnasium full of high school students in Texas last week. The singer made a surprise appearance at Celina High School's pep rally on Friday to talk to the teens about high school football and how it inspired him.

The East Tennessee native, whose ode to the game, 'The Boys of Fall,' is heading up the charts, was a wide receiver for Gibbs High School. He said playing football every Friday night impacted him in a way that he never thought possible, so much so, he decided to make a documentary on it.

During his year off from touring, Kenny's passion for high school football drove him to produce an ESPN documentary, after sending a crew to a game where his pal, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton was delivering a motivational pregame speech to a bunch of players at a separate high school. Originally, the speech was just supposed to be used for the music video, but seeing it, Kenny decided to expand the idea into the documentary, which premiered on ESPN last month and repeats Monday night (September 27) on ESPN 2 at 7:00 PM ET.

Celina's football team is featured in the documentary and music video for 'The Boys of Fall,' and they were chosen, Kenny explains, because of their success, especially in a small town.

"I think the thing that football coaches do, and what mine did for me, is they help you see that no matter what it is you want that you can do, but you're going to have to work really, really hard," Kenny explains. "Football's not a game where you can just show up. You can't. Like Joe [Namath] said, [it] killed me when I was doing the interview and I sat there and watched him say it. When he said, 'For everybody who says football is a team game, well, life is a team game.' And that's true. I left that interview looking at my own life, I mean, you can't help it. I got in the car, and I went, 'How do I relate to what Joe said? Where's my life in all this?' And I loved that that happened."

'The Boys of Fall,' is featured on Kenny's much-anticipated new album, 'Hemingway's Whiskey,' which arrives in stores on Tuesday, September 28.