SHERBORN, MA – Seventeen years ago, Erron Kinney was a third round draft pick for the Tennessee Titans. On Saturday, he takes over as chief of the Sherborn Fire Department. The department signed the 39-year-old to a five-year contract in January, nine years after he first became a firefighter and 11 after he hung up his cleats.

Kinney was drafted out of the University of Florida and played six seasons at tight end for the Titans, retiring in 2006. But it was firefighting, not football, that was a lifelong fascination of his, he told the Boston Globe. He became a junior firefighter at 13, spent time helping around the station and loved the "big red trucks that made a lot of noise," the Globe reported.

Kinney, a fire chief in Mt. Juliet, TN, was one of 30 candidates for the position of Sherborn fire chief and a finalist last year for the job in Framingham. In a Globe interview, he said he is "excited" to relocate to New England, where he spent time with his wife, an Arlington native.