CCU Football Notebook: How the Chants joined the movement against social, racial injustice
The Coastal Carolina football team has joined the movement against social and racial injustice in the United States.
The team put out a video on social media this week with the theme “Be The Change,” which is the motto the Sun Belt Conference has adopted this season in light of the Black Lives Matter initiative and nationwide protests for social reform.
The 50-second video begins with senior defensive lineman C.J. Brewer sitting in front of a camera saying, “Before I’m a student-athlete, I’m African American. It has been too many years. When will the change start? It starts with us.”
That is followed by 17 teammates — black and white — saying, “Enough is enough, equality is mandatory, time for justice, and love one another.” Brewer returns to say, “Here at Coastal Carolina football, we pledge to be the change.”
The video ends with the team saying “be the change,” as a group on the field at Brooks Stadium and joining arms. As of Thursday afternoon, it has received about 13,500 views on Twitter.
“Our team has done I think a good job of handling everything that’s going on in the world right now and being unified throughout all of it,” senior linebacker Silas Kelly said. “. . . People from all different backgrounds and upbringings and races come together and we have a unified goal and unified purpose, that’s kind of what we work toward every day.
“Just because somebody’s skin color is different from mine doesn’t mean they’re any less of a brother to me than anyone else. That’s kind of how our entire team feels and we wanted to make sure it was known that’s how we feel. It’s very important to us.”
On Twitter, the team’s post that accompanies the video says only “Together!” with the hashtags #EnoughIsEnough #loveoneanother #justice #Equality #BeTheChange.
The Sun Belt’s “Be The Change” initiative is geared to help students become more civic-minded.
It includes educational webinars, visits to sites on the conference’s Civil Rights Trail, “Be The Change” emblems that will be placed on helmets all season as reminders of the initiative, a voter registration drive competition between schools, and a required day off from athletics activity on Election Day, Tuesday Nov. 3.
“Our players have a platform because of being able to play football, they’ve been given that platform and they need to use it for a positive change,” CCU head coach Jamey Chadwell said. “What we challenge them on is don’t be a sheep and just say stuff that you hear, have a reason and have facts behind what’s important to you.
“If you watch that video those guys, the things they want to be the change on are things that are important to our country as we continue to go forward. I’m proud of what they’re doing and how they’re trying to use the platform they have, and not using the platform to try to divide but bring people together and love, and I thought that was what really made what they wanted to do in the video worthwhile.”
Other college football teams and players across the country have shown support for social justice reform in ways that include skipping practices and leading marches.
Avoiding COVID-19
There were only three positive coronavirus cases among students for the week of Aug. 20-26 on the entire CCU campus despite a few thousand students having already moved into their student housing, and none among school staff, according to the university.
Small numbers like that will allow the Chants to play their games this season, as long as their opponents aren’t forced to forfeit or attempt to postpone games because of a COVID-19 outbreak.
“For what they’ve had to try to go through and to try to change habits, I’m proud of what they’ve done,” Chadwell said of his players. “Something could change tomorrow, I’m realistic on that. But they’re doing everything we’re asking them to, to try to mitigate and avoid putting them in situations and circumstances that could cause and outbreak.
“So I think right now things are great. Where I get nervous is we continue to go through the season and you have certain guys who maybe aren’t playing as much or maybe they’re not playing, do they still have the same diligence of the ones who are playing, because they’re going to affect them either way. . . . So we’ve still got a long way to go with that, but our guys have done a fantastic job up to this point.”
The university reported a total of 56 new positive coronaviris cases, 54 of them in students, last week from Aug. 27-Sept. 2, bringing the total to 122 positive cases since testing began June 8. That is a combination of all symptomatic testing, regular surveillance testing of student-athletes per NCAA guidelines, and positive test results reported by students and employees, though the university concedes it may not be aware of all tests taken by university employees or students.
The university is reporting weekly positive case numbers every Friday morning.
Despite CCU’s relatively small numbers – the University of Alabama reported more than 500 cases in less than a week – numerous players have still lost a lot of practice time due to the coronavirus and safeguards put in place by the university including isolating cases and quarantining possible contacts with positive cases.
It may cost the team a couple starters and game time lost by others who were expected to contribute when Coastal opens the season at Kansas next Saturday night.
“We’re still trying to overcome the quarantine and all those things,” Chadwell said. “That’s the biggest challenge that we face, trying to get those guys that were lost into game shape, that just doesn’t happen overnight. So we’re going to probably have guys that don’t play in the game, not because they’re not healthy, but because of the time they lost we can’t get them back in time to contribute what we need them to do.
“It hit us pretty good there in August, not necessarily the covid but just the quarantine and isolation and housing and all the different things you need to follow. We’ll see.”
Teams around the Sun Belt Conference have been impacted to a greater degree by the virus and required protocols.
The Louisiana-Monroe at Troy game originally scheduled for Saturday has been postponed until Dec. 5 because of a coronavirus outbreak within the ULM program that included at least nine confirmed cases and led to the temporary suspension of all football-related activity.
Georgia Southern suspended football practice for nearly a week after a small number of players tested positive for COVID-19.
Date, time changes
Coastal’s home opener against Campbell has been moved up a day to Friday, Sept. 18. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised live online on ESPN3.
Coastal was expecting to have a prime time game at Georgia State on Thursday, Oct. 29 that was going to be televised on ESPNews, but the game has been moved to Saturday Oct. 31.
ESPN has shuffled its schedule because of the cancelation of some fall football seasons and games, and the contest is among the changes. The game time has not been set.
Spectators at home?
Coastal has submitted a request to the South Carolina state government to host spectators for home games at Brooks Stadium – as well as home games in other sports – at a percentage of the venue’s capacity of approximately 20,000.
The state is allowing Clemson to have 19,000 fans at its games, or roughly 23 percent of capacity at Memorial Stadium, while South Carolina can have 20,000 spectators, which is nearly 25 percent of seating capacity at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“I know they’re working hard to try to have some fans there,” Chadwell said Tuesday. “I’m assuming that’s going to be anywhere between 20 and 25 percent, if you’re following some of the other schools in our state.”
The QB battle
Junior Fred Payton has established himself as the frontrunner for the starting quarterback job this offseason after leading the team in 2019 with 119 completions, 187 attempts, 1,421 passing yards, 12 passing TDs, seven interceptions and 1,602 total yards of offense.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll start in the opener at Kansas. Payton has missed more than a week of practices because of a sore Achilles tendon, which has given fellow junior Bryce Carpenter of Sarasota, Florida., and redshirt freshmen Grayson McCall of Indian Trail, N.C., time to work with the starting offense.
Payton was able Monday to have a full practice and take live reps for the first time in nearly two weeks.
“He missed quite a few days, so he’s still not to where he can start a game for us right now, to be honest with you,” Chadwell said. “We’re taking that as a slow process. It’s not anything that’s going to cause him to miss a year or anything, but it’s something if we don’t take care of it can linger all year long. So we’re trying to be smart with that.
“ . . . Bryce and Grayson have made good progress the last couple weeks, especially Grayson – he obviously had further to go. But we’re high on him and what he’s done up to this point. He’s still learning because he’s young. Hopefully in the next few days, that will sort of distinguish what we’re going to do there for the first game.”
CCU’S REVISED SCHEDULE
Sept. 12 at Kansas, 10 p.m.
Sept. 18 vs. Campbell, 7 p.m.
Oct. 3 vs. Arkansas State
Oct. 17 at Louisiana
Oct. 24 vs. Georgia Southern
Oct. 29 at Georgia State
Nov. 7 vs. South Alabama
Nov. 14 at Troy
Nov. 21 vs. Appalachian State
Nov. 28 at Texas State
Dec. 5 vs. Liberty
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 2:43 PM.
