Chants’ Tidwell took an unlikely path to collegiate football

When Chase Tidwell returns to his former school Saturday, now as a starting offensive lineman for Coastal Carolina, the Charleston Southern coaches won’t have any thoughts about a player who got away.

Because not even Tidwell knew back then that he’d eventually be playing college football.

“It’s a crazy story,” he said this week before heading out to practice with the Chanticleers.

Tidwell, now a junior listed at 6-foot-5, 275 pounds, spent his first collegiate semester at Charleston Southern with intentions of playing baseball and basketball for the Buccaneers. He went through fall practice and some spring workouts with the baseball team there before deciding it wasn’t the right fit.

And again, at that time, even he couldn’t have predicted what would end up being the right fit.

“I was working out at a local gym and a guy who played at Ohio University, he saw me and just asked what I was doing with my life,” Tidwell said, telling the story. “I told him ‘Nothing, I’m just going to be a regular student.’ He said, ‘You’re a pretty big guy, why don’t you try football?’ So I said, ‘Alright,’ and I called my high school coach and he made some phone calls and sent some film out and it all worked out.”

An assistant coach at Stratford High School in Goose Creek, who was also Tidwell’s weightlifting coach and would become the head coach there, helped him put together video of him lifting and running. Tidwell sent it out to four or five schools, but Coastal Carolina was his target all along as his father Bob Tidwell had played basketball for the Chants from 1984-87.

Coastal Carolina recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach Cory Bailey liked what he saw on film of Tidwell and invited him to campus.

The Chants, though, couldn’t have known then that a guy who never played high school football would eventually end up as a starting offensive lineman for the No. 1-ranked team in the FCS.

“[We saw] a big, long athletic guy. He wanted to be a tight end. He was a tight end for about four days and we said, ‘Bro, you’re moving in to be a tackle,’” Chants offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude said. “He was athletic. He could run and catch and do all that stuff, but he wasn’t athletic enough to be a tight end for what we wanted to do. So we said, ‘Look, if you want to do this, this is how you have to do it. You’ve got to play tackle, you’re athletic and you’ve got to put weight on.’

“He’s put on a lot of weight. He was really conscientious in the weight room. He’s starting to feel a lot better about being a leader. He’s a vocal kind of kid. He’s been a blessing. He came out of nowhere and he’s really done a good job.”

Tidwell took a redshirt season last year while adapting to not only college football, but football in general, and then won the starting right tackle job this season.

The Chants’ season opener at Furman was his first ever football game.

“So nervous. A bunch of nerves of course,” he said, looking back on that game. “But once I got in and the first snap went off, I kind of settled in and said, ‘OK, here we go. Time to play ball.’”

Tidwell has started all seven games so far this season, and the coaches have been pleased with his play.

“It still at times moves a little fast for him because he hasn’t played high school football, he didn’t play at a junior college, he wasn’t at Clemson before he came here. He was playing baseball,” Patenaude said. “But he’s got really good athletic ability and he’s got a good sense of timing. It’s been a good job by Pat Covington to make sure he understood the game enough to be able to go out there and function.”

Patenaude said that’s why the Chants take fliers on walk-ons with upside because they never know what a player can become until he gets into the program. He rattled off the list of walk-ons who are playing key roles now for the team, including starting safety Kelvin Deveaux, linebacker Rayshaud Shields and kick returner Devin Brown.

“You just go right down the line of [walk-on] kids that over the last four years have been really good players,” he said. “You never know about a kid until you get him in the program, you have him for four years and you develop him. It’s the same thing on the other end. How many times have you gotten a ‘four-star kid’ or a ‘three-star kid’ and that kid [can’t play] because of whatever it is, he can’t make the adjustment from being a high school player to a college player. ...

“Coach Moglia is fantastic about giving kids an opportunity.”

As for Tidwell, he expects to have a nice crowd of family and friends in attendance Saturday night. His home is just a few minutes from Charleston Southern’s campus, and he’s excited to return this weekend – especially as a key contributor for an undefeated Chants team with national championship aspirations.

“It’s been wild. It’s an awesome experience. I’m blessed to be [part of the program] and every day I’m learning something new,” he said. “The guys have been great, the coaches have been great bringing me along every week. It’s been a wild ride and I’m just happy to be here.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 9:22 PM with the headline "Chants’ Tidwell took an unlikely path to collegiate football."