His secret visit to the Corryton school on Wednesday was all because he wanted to give the current group of players a sneak peak of something very special.

“You all grew up just like us,” Chesney said. “You drive the same road we drove, you obviously played on the same football field we played on and walked through the same halls, so it’s really a special time for me to come here and play you guys this. A game we all love.”

Watch WVLT’s report below:

Here are a couple excerpts:

Last fall, something inside Chesney changed.

“I was standing onstage last year, and I felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. No matter how many people were out there, it all just felt like a blank sheet of paper. You’d think I’d have been happiest in my life playing music in front of 50,000 people at Gillette Stadium. But let me tell you, it’s an odd feeling to feel alone in the spotlight.”

Today, dating is a whole new ballgame.

“The world is a different place now. I mean, if I go out with a girl, there is a possibility that she’s going to get up from the dinner table and go to the bathroom and use Twitter to tell everybody what she’s doing. And the next thing you know, everybody’s got a play-by-play of what you’re having for dinner. That would make anybody uncomfortable.”

The other misconception about Chesney is that he’s not comfortable without his hat.

“When I was 17 or 18, I’d take my helmet off on the field, and I’d see hair in it and go, ‘Good God! What’s going on?.’ It did bother me in college a little bit–going bald–but it doesn’t at all now. What’s ironic about it is that friends of mine in their 30s and 40s are just starting to lose their hair and are freaking out. I went through all that in high school.”

Read more excerpts from the interview here and here.

There is also an accompanying photo shoot that you can view here.

Look for the full interview with Kenny in the Sunday, August 8th issue of Parade, available in your Sunday newspaper.

Chesney continued his reign atop the country music industry by out-touring everyone else. His 2009 tour grossed $71 million and brought in an average of $1.6 million every night, nearly doubling the box office receipts of his closest competitor, Keith Urban. Prominent sponsorships with companies like Corona and MasterCard keep tour costs down, making the tours even more profitable.

Number 54 is a sizable drop from last year when Chesney came in at number 31 with $65 million in earnings. In May, Forbes released their list of top country earners, which Chesney topped.

Number one on the list this year is Oprah Winfrey, followed by Beyonce, James Cameron, Lady Gaga, and Tiger Woods. Other country acts on the list include Taylor Swift (12), Rascal Flatts (62), Toby Keith (67), and Keith Urban (76).

The country superstar spent several weeks this winter in L.A. editing his new concert film Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D, and managed to squeeze in his first-ever Italian vacation.

“We went to Capri, Positano and a little town called Ravello,” Chesney says. “I ate a lot of bread, drank a lot of wine and ate some really good cheese. And it was great. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to go my whole life, but I never afforded myself the time to do things like that. Now it’s one of my favorite places in the world.”

Though taking the time off “was the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” Chesney says, “I’m so glad I made it. I haven’t felt this content in a long time.”

The drive that had made the singer the biggest North American ticket seller of the past decade had also taken a toll on his personal life. “Someone said ‘You sure do give a lot of your life to this’ and I said, ‘No, this IS my life.’ There’s no room for anything else. And that’s gotta change.”

Step one has been spending more time with the people closest to him. “I’ve been getting reacquainted with people who you shouldn’t have to get reacquainted with: my family,” he says.

Chesney, 42, is also opening himself up to romance. “If I want a relationship, I have to give to it too.”

Not that the singer is racing down the aisle. Although he has been dating Nashville nurse Amy Colley since 2008, “it’s not like I’m taking a year off so I can get married again,” he says. ” ‘Cause that could or couldn’t happen. But I want to put myself in a position to do it if it did happen. I want to put myself in a position to have a relationship in my life.”

He also has more travel on the horizon. “I want to go to places I’ve never been,” he says. “China? The Pyramids?”

“Who knows? I want to go explore,” Chesney says. “I want to taste everything. I want to take a big spoon, dip it in and taste it all.”

People.com also has a video up with some scenes from the photo shoot for the article. Check it out here (scroll down the page to find it).

Dave Matthews was first with $529.1 million and Celine Dion was second with $522.1 million.

Chesney came in ahead such heavyweights as the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Madonna, The Eagles, and Elton John.

(h/t to Kathy)

“Invictus” is the true story of how Nelson Mandela and the mostly white South African rugby team won the Rugby World Cup shortly after apartheid had damaged the nation.

Chesney was in town to do voiceovers for his upcoming 3D movie, and described how he wouldn’t normally be able to do something like this because of the demands of planning a tour:

“It’s a powerful story. And you know anything Morgan’s in, he’s going to bring a lot of heart and humanity to the role,” Kenny said in a statement.

“You know, this is the kind of thing I don’t get to do when we’re building one of those tours… and it’s really nice to be able to share this kind of thing with my friends!”

(photo by Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

My life’s real enough, you know? I don’t think so. I really don’t. I just don’t think that I would. I would rather concentrate on tryin’ to connect with fans in the audience and tryin’ to write a great song and cut great music, and that takes up a lot of time, to be honest with you. I don’t think you’ll ever see me do that.”

Kenny adds that he lacks the desire — and the talent — to act. “I’ve even had a lot of people ask me if I want to act. I’m never sayin’ never, but it’s not something I wake up everyday wanting to do, and so I don’t think I’d ever take a year off to go do a movie or something. I wouldn’t be that good at it anyway. I think I realized doin’ the ‘You Save Me’ video where it took us three days to shoot three minutes of an opening of a video. I realized right then I wanted my day job back — that I was never gonna have the patience to act (laughs).” .)

(h/t to Bonnie for passing this along)

“You know,” says Kenny of the honor, “to me, it’s about rocking the fans… and I never want to have a ticket price that keeps the people who buy my records or listen to my songs in their truck from coming out and partying with us. If I can make sure there are always seats people can afford – and even try to keep the best seats where they’re reasonable for what they are – then I feel like I can keep having the party of the summer when I go out. Again, to me, it’s about that moment and having fun with your buddies.

“And when you look at some of the other names on that list, well, I’m blown away… cause those are some great shows, too! I know – I’ve been out to see a few of them when we were off, and to be in company with Elton John – who’s out with Billy Joel –, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen or my friend Dave Matthews, it makes you extra grateful that people chose to make you a part of their summer.”

Billboard’s Touring Editor Ray Waddell noted that for seven straight years, Kenny’s sold above a million tickets sales. Even on his shortest tour to date and charging the lowest ticket prices of any major headliner, he was also the only act on the list to play NFL Stadiums across the nation.

“I don’t think anyone sets up their concert schedule or their ticket prices thinking, ‘I’m gonna be the biggest tour on the road,” Kenny says. “But these are the moments that confirm what I already know: I have the best, wildest, most committed fans any artist could ever hope for. I like to think I live their lives with’em through my songs, and they’ve made my last 8 summers the best of a very, very good life by coming out to the shows they way they do.”

Read the full article here.

Last year Trace Adkins took home the prize. Let’s push Kenny over the top this year:

Click here to vote!

Voting runs August 31st through September 14th. The results for Country’s Sexiest Man will be published in the October 26th issue of Country Weekly, on sale Oct. 19.

(h/t Katie)

Susan Mazar said the singer grabbed it while she was at this weekend’s concert in Foxborough.

Mazar said she was in the front row taking pictures, when the singer grabbed the camera from her.

Mazar said she and other fans were stunned when Chesney took the camera.

“(Chesney) was like a person in front of me and he reached down, grabs the camera, shuts it, goes down the walkway and throws it on the stage,” Mazar said.

Mazar said she did get the camera back, but the memory card, loaded with pictures of her family vacation, was missing.

Mazar told NewsCenter 5 that she was taking still pictures only of the show, not video.

Earlier in the tour Kenny was upset with people videotaping him during shows and it appeared that cameras might be banned altogether but this was not the case. Only videotaping is not allowed.

ChesneyWorld received this tweet after the Gillette show:

“I was there when the girl said kenny took her camera & to KC’s defense, she was videotaping the whole show”

Also, Erin from CountryMusicIsLove.com was interviewed by Electric Barnyard and explained that she was about 10 feet from the whole thing and that it was a video camera, not a still camera. Listen to the interview here.

What are your thoughts on this story? Leave a comment to this post or discuss on our forum.