Coastal Carolina football team, coach Chadwell condemn social injustice in statements
The Coastal Carolina football team released its collective thoughts in a heartfelt statement regarding the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the national unrest that has followed, and head coach Jamey Chadwell expressed his thoughts in a separate statement as well.
The team’s statement emanated from a video teleconference meeting involving the its 10-player leadership council.
It read in part: “Our hearts are broken and justice needs to be served. . . . Our team is determined to use our platform to be a light in the darkness. . . . We will choose to stand against any forms of racism and bigotry. We will choose not to have a bitter spirit but have a spirit of giving and helping to make a change in our communities.”
The team also commended CCU Department of Public Safety Police Chief David Roper and other law enforcement officials “who do their jobs with integrity and respect,” and vowed to support black communities with their “voices and actions.”
Chadwell shared his personal experiences in life through college in his statement, which included: “There is no room for racism and hate in our society. I will never know the feeling of walking down the street and fearing for my life but I will use my platform to stand up for my brothers who are teammates.”
Chadwell said the team will address social justice in its Life After Football sessions, and hopes to follow up the statements with actions that will be more impactful.
“I think the people that are out protesting and doing it in a nonviolent way are handling things the right way, and we support that and that’s what our team talked about,” Chadwell said. “From our standpoint we’ve got to make sure it’s just not something to put on Twitter so people say, ‘Oh, he said something,’ or ‘Their team said something.’ We need to educate our players and give them the tools and resources so their voices can be heard.”
The upcoming season
The CCU football team will be allowed to return to campus for the first time in nearly three months for voluntary workouts beginning Monday in the first phase of a plan to play fall sports in 2020.
The Chants report to preseason camp on Aug. 6 and are scheduled to kick off the season on Sept. 5 at South Carolina.
Will the season start on time?
“I’m confident in that,” Chadwell said. “If you listen to the NCAA and everything they’ve done I think there is a confidence it can and will start on time. I think it’s all up to how each phase goes.“ . . . I think you have to have four weeks to try to get ready. If you’re underneath four weeks you might not be able to kick off right away. Right now with the states opening up and everything that’s going on, it looks like everybody is headed in that direction, that we’ll be able to do that.”
Chadwell moved CCU’s spring practices up to February this offseason, which allowed the Chanticleers to complete all 15 spring practices while other programs that had a later traditional start were unable to get all of their practices in.
“I think you’re ahead from a standpoint of knowing what your players can do and can’t do. We have a lot of new guys who were able to get a lot of reps, so I think from that standpoint you are ahead,” Chadwell said. “But I think at this point, who has done something all this time we’ve been off is really what’s going to matter. We did get a great jump, but if our players didn’t take advantage of that and use what they gained to try to get better it’s for not.”
A number of Coastal players have posted their individual workouts on social media.
“I feel confident guys have been working,” Chadwell said.
Waiting on the NCAA
Chadwell said the paperwork has been submitted to the NCAA requesting redshirt junior defensive end Jeffrey Gunter’s eligibility this season.
Gunter, who was named to the 2018 All-Sun Belt Conference First Team before transferring to N.C. State prior to the 2019 season, has returned to the Chants after sitting out the 2019 season per NCAA transfer rules and has requested a waiver from the NCAA to avoid sitting out a second consecutive year. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
In 2018, Gunter (6-foot-4, 260 pounds) totaled 49 tackles, including 14 for loss and five sacks, and in 24 games in his two years at CCU he recorded 75 tackles, including 17.5 for loss.
“We hope he can play because of how good he was here before he left,” Chadwell said.
In addition to Gunter, Chadwell said the team may add up to four players either as graduate transfers, undergraduate transfers through the NCAA Transfer Portal, or high school graduates before preseason camp begins.
The process has been slowed because prospective transfers haven’t been able to visit campuses due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“We’re working through the virtual visits and all those things,” Chadwell said.
Sun Belt selections
Seven Chants were named to the preseason Athlon Sports’ 2020 All-Sun Belt Team announced Wednesday, led by senior running back C.J. Marable and senior defensive end Tarron Jackson, who earned First Team honors.
Senior offensive lineman Trey Carter, junior tight end Isaiah Likely, senior defensive lineman C.J. Brewer, senior linebacker Teddy Gallagher and junior placekicker Massimo Biscardi were all named to the second team.
Taylor changes course
The CCU men’s golf team is getting the player with the best career scoring average in school history back for the upcoming school year.
Zack Taylor, who would have expended his eligibility this past season as a fifth-year senior, is taking advantage of the NCAA granting another year of eligibility to spring sports athletes after their seasons were cut short by the coronavirus.
Taylor was also enticed to return by the recent creation of PGA Tour University, a program that awards the top-15 graduating seniors with status on the PGA Tour’s development tours — Korn Ferry, Mackenzie (PGA Tour Canada), PGA Tour Latinoamérica, PGA Tour Series-China — based on a ranking system. It is only open to NCAA Division I golfers who completed four years of college.
“I was originally signed up to do the Mackenzie Tour Q-School in April and obviously with everything going on they ended up canceling it. If I would have turned pro I would have had nothing to play in,” Taylor said. “So with the inclusion of the PGA Tour University and the NCAA giving us another year, I just decided it would be best to better my game a little bit longer and grow with the guys I have on my team because that’s the best competition I have.”
It will be Taylor’s third year on the team. He spent his first three years at CCU as a regular student in the PGA Golf Management Program before joining the team through an invitation from coach Jim Garren.
Taylor, of Pittsburgh, who won the General Hackler Championship at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club on March 10, has a 71.15 scoring average in 19 events in less than two full seasons.
PGA Tour star Dustin Johnson has the second-best career scoring average in program history at 72.26 over four years.
“My game has come a long way since I joined the team,” Taylor said. “It’s grown from learning how to play golf correctly, with coach Garren teaching me things I hadn’t known before, I really matured and grew as both a golfer and a person. So I think one more year . . . will really kind of benefit me.”
Taylor received a bachelor’s degree in marketing through the PGA Golf Management Program and has re-enrolled at Coastal in a non-degree-seeking field that will allow him to take easier classes so he can focus nearly entirely on golf.
“Obviously, I want to play on the PGA Tour,” he said.
His PGM degree requires a three-month internship that Taylor is fulfilling at CCU’s Hackler Course. He plans to play in a few top amateur events this summer that haven’t yet been canceled, including the Southern Amateur at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas from July 15-18, and Sunnehanna Am at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, Pa., from July 21-24, and the Western Am at Crooked Stick in Indiana from July 27-Aug. 1.
He also hopes to be selected to play in the U.S. Amateur, which will not have its customary qualifying this year because of COVID-19. Taylor is 120th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll catch an invitation to that,” Taylor said.
The team’s other senior in 2019, States Fort, has also decided to return to the team for his fifth season of eligibility. “That will be good to have another guy I’ve played a long time with and other guys I’m really good friends with,” he said.
DJ finds home
Following a record-breaking senior season, CCU women’s basketball star DiJanai “DJ” Williams has found a home in Italy.
Williams, of California, has signed to play with Gesam Gas Le Mura Lucca in Lucca, which is in the first division in Italy.
Williams, a cancer survivor, was the 2019-20 Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year after averaging 19.4 points, 5.3 assists, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.4 steals per game and was not selected in the WNBA Draft. She scored a school-record 51 points in a win over Troy on Feb. 13.
Her agent, former CCU assistant coach Will Clay of Daymond John’s Shark Sports Management company, believes the Italian league will be a good first step for her pro career.
“Playing in a good league overseas and participating in the [WNBA] combine as a free agent next year will be a good path,” Clay said last month.
Williams 2019 teammate, center Naheria Hamilton, has also signed a pro contract with the Basketball SV Halle Lions in Germany.
Hamilton, who graduated in May with a Sociology degree, is Coastal’s all-time career blocks leader with 212, is tied for first with a career average of 8.1 rebounds per game, is second all-time in career rebounds with 942, and is one of 17 Chants to score 1,000 career points.
Sun Belt finalizes bowls
The Sun Belt Conference has solidified its football postseason opportunities for the next six years with five bowl tie-ins beginning this season, including the new Myrtle Beach Bowl.
The conference’s new postseason lineup includes placement in three ESPN Events owned-and-operated bowl games and annual participation in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, which will hold the second selection from the conference, and the LendingTree Bowl, which will hold the fifth selection.
The other three annual bowl selections are based on a flex model with ESPN Events, which will hold the first, third and fourth selections from the league and will utilize a flex model to select teams into the following pool of games: Myrtle Beach Bowl, Boca Raton Bowl (Boca Raton, Fla.), Camellia Bowl (Montgomery, Ala.), Cure Bowl (Orlando, Fla.), Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Boise, Idaho), SERVPRO First Responder Bowl (Dallas, Texas), Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl (Frisco, Texas), and New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque, N.M.).
The Myrtle Beach Bowl, which is expected to be played at Brooks Stadium through at least 2025, will also feature teams from Conference USA and the Mid-American Conference.
Additionally, the Sun Belt champion will be chosen for a New Year’s Six bowl if it is ranked by the College Football Playoff committee as the top champion among the Group of Five conferences.
NFL signings
Former CCU defensive lineman Sterling Johnson signed a free agent contract with the New York Jets to join the NFL team’s rookie training camp, and at least 24 other Sun Belt members from the 2019 season are also with NFL teams.
Seven NFL Draft selections tied for the most in Sun Belt history with 2010. Three were from Louisiana and two each were from Appalachian State and Georgia Southern.
Louisiana offensive lineman Robert Hunt was chosen in the second round by Miami, OL Devin Dotson was taken in the fourth round by Pittsburgh, and running back Raymond Calais was taken in the seventh round by Tampa Bay.
Appalachian State RB Darrynton Evans was taken by Tennessee in the third round and linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither was taken by Cincinnati in the fourth round. Georgia Southern defensive back Kindle Vildor was taken by Chicago in the fifth round and kicker Tyler Bass was taken by Buffalo in the sixth round.
At least 18 Sun Belt players off nine teams have signed free agent contracts.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 6:40 PM.
