As West Virginia State athletic director Nate Burton and the rest of the staff involved in selecting the school's next football coach conducted its nationwide search, they had a certain set of characteristics they were looking for in the next person to lead the program.
When they looked through their list of candidates, each time they kept coming back to a certain name - realizing that the person they were looking for had been on the staff all along.
That made it clear that the right choice was John Pennington, the Charleston native who had served as the school's offensive coordinator the last two seasons and was introduced as the Yellow Jackets' next coach on Friday.
"This is something I've been dreaming of since I started coaching, for 12 years we've been working to get to this point," Pennington said. "Everything was worth it and I'm glad to be here. This is my home and this is where I want to be."
Pennington had served as the program's interim head coach since December, when Jon Anderson left to become head coach at the University of Sioux Falls. In his two seasons as the offensive coordinator, West Virginia State has gone from one of the Mountain East Conference's lowest-scoring teams to an offense that has averaged 28.4 points per game and is one of the best passing attacks in the league.
"With John, he didn't want to just be a head coach. He wanted to be the head coach at West Virginia State," Burton said. "Every step of the process he stood out - when we looked at his body of work, how he did in his phone interview, the things he was doing on campus, he just kept showing that it was pretty clear he was the one we wanted to lead this program into the future."
Now that the move has been made official, Pennington will be shifting his focus to building his coaching staff and recruiting with National Signing Day approaching next week. He has been working with the handful of coaches that remained on the staff to try to lock down the 2017 signing class.
He said the transition that will happen between now and the start of spring practice will be a crucial one for the program as it prepares to keep moving forward.
"I've been piecing it together over the last month and a half, but it's been a little bit different every day," Pennington said. "We've had a lot of people interested [in joining the coaching staff] even since before I was named the head coach.
"It's my job to find the right people to bring in here. You want to bring in people that you trust and that you're loyal to and have a similar background to you."
West Virginia State finished 3-8 a year ago, winning the last two games of the season. In Pennington's first season on the staff, the Yellow Jackets won five games for the first time since 2008.
During his introductory press conference, Pennington said he hoped to build a winning culture within the program. It's one that is going to start with the players already on the roster - a group that returns eight starters on defense and 10 on offense next season.
"In my family, when we see a challenge, we accept that challenge and we embrace it," Pennington said. "I'm grateful for this opportunity. I love the way it all went down and I wouldn't have it any other way."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.