Jamey Chadwell keeps winning at Coastal Carolina. He’s as content as ever in Conway

Jamey Chadwell crosses his legs beneath his brown wooden desk on the third floor of the Marrio and Josh Norman Fieldhouse, beginning to mouth a familiar pronunciation.

“Sh-AW-nt-i-cleers,” he melodramatically whispers toward the reporter sitting in front of him.

Chadwell is 13 seconds into a prerecorded interview with the in-house radio team at Old Dominion, Coastal Carolina’s opponent on Saturday. He’s spent far more time than that over his four-plus years as head coach in Conway playing a role that’s become equal parts football coach and etymologist.

“That’s how you know we haven’t arrived,” Chadwell told The State, hanging up the call. “No one can pronounce our name.”

Despite Chadwell’s attempts at humility, Coastal Carolina University has become one of the most consistent winners among the Group of Five conferences almost overnight. The Chanticleers are 28-3 dating back to 2020 and off to a 6-0 start this fall.

That kind of success has brought attention — wanted and otherwise — to the program.

A billboard featuring star quarterback Grayson McCall’s photo as part of an advertisement for local apparel company Native Sons resides a stone’s throw from campus along Highway 501. The football staff has even donned T-shirts with outlines of their signal-caller’s patented mullet.

Chadwell himself has seen his name thrown in the ring for just about every major head-coaching job that’s come open the last two cycles. He’s more recently been suggested as an option for vacancies at Nebraska and Georgia Tech.

“At the end of the day, it’s how our business works,” CCU athletic director Matt Hogue said. “When people achieve great things, they’re going to be recognized, and there’s going to be a lot of other places wanting him.”

But here, in the midst of another season that may well end with a Sun Belt championship, Chadwell is still in Conway, with a team and program that — as he puts it — he’s perfectly comfortable with.

Why?

“If (I’m coaching) here the rest of my life, or however long they want me here, awesome,” Chadwell said of his future aspirations. “If there’s another place, it’ll open up regardless — (that’s) how I look at things.

“And maybe other people laugh at that and say, ‘Pshhhh, whatever,’ but it helps me stay content. Does that make sense? Because I think if you don’t have a perspective on that, man, it can eat you up. (Besides), it’s not like I’m at Podunk U.”

‘People aren’t happy with 6-0’

Chadwell struts into his daily morning staff meeting at 8:11 a.m. armed with a tumbler mug emblazoned with a Fellowship of Christian Athletes logo and a binder dense enough to house the U.S. nuclear codes.

Nearly the entire 36-person football staff is scattered around the multipurpose team meeting room at the end of the hallway. Each person has their same respective seats they retreat to every morning. The chairs aren’t reserved, per se, but they might as well be. Creatures of habit, these coaches are.

“All right, let’s get into it,” Chadwell says as he settles into his usual spot nine seats in from the right side of the room.

There’s an ease about the staff assembled by the 46-year-old Tennessean. The bulk of them have worked with Chadwell on and off for the better part of a decade and a half at Division II North Greenville, Delta State, Charleston Southern and, now, Coastal Carolina.

That brings familiarity and a consistent energy within the program whose WWE-esque victory celebrations stole headlines en route to an 11-1 season in 2020.

Chadwell leans into the goofiness and fun-loving nature. He grew a mullet to match his players in 2020. Last year, he put on a mustache-growing contest. This summer he rocked an “I Piss Teal” T-shirt at Sun Belt Media Days — a nod to McCall’s infamous announcement declaring his return to Coastal this year.

Next on the list? Rumors of blonde hair dye are circulating.

“You never know,” Chadwell said during his weekly press conference, tongue-in-cheek. “If this team continues to find a way, they want me to do something. I’ve shown I’m willing to do it. We’ll figure it out.

“Maybe I can get me a ‘Nard Dog’ tattoo like on ‘The Office.’ ”

Chadwell comes across as a coach who’s unapologetically himself. He loves chatting about Val Kilmer’s portrayal of Doc Holliday in “Tombstone” — an autographed photo of which rests on the wall behind his desk chair. He’ll run through any number of Conway or Myrtle Beach breakfast places he loves (Johnny D’s and 10/Fold Biscuits are on the list).

He doesn’t mince words related to work either. Chadwell willingly discusses the near-constant rumors tying him to jobs elsewhere, while he opens up meetings other programs treat like the Pentagon to inquiring reporters.

Of late, that self-awareness has helped him keep things stress-free within the building. He’s currently guiding a squad that’s 6-0 but has won three of its past five games by one touchdown or less as it replaces a pair of NFL draft picks and returned just six starters.

Defensive coordinator Chad Staggs, a former South Carolina graduate assistant under Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz, notes the staff is well aware of the increasingly vocal factions of the fanbase irritated the Chanticleers aren’t winning in more dominant fashion.

When you’ve won 28 of your last 31 games, it’s easy to forget Coastal Carolina is just three years removed from a 5-7 campaign.

“Now, people aren’t happy with 6-0,” Staggs said. “Because we didn’t beat them like we should beat them.”

Mastering the Jamey Chadwell offense at Coastal Carolina

The offensive staff meeting at 9 a.m. is a peek behind the wizardry of the pseudo-option scheme Chadwell and his assistants have developed over the past 13 years.

Keywords like bark, bear, scooba, sonic and nike are tossed around in the two-hour masterclass devoted just to third-and-short, third-and-medium and third-and-extra-long plays that could fit into this week’s game plan.

The minute details packed into the session anchored by offensive line coach Bill Durkin and tight ends coach Cody Ladutko include everything from ways ODU disguises coverages to tendencies of certain defenders.

To a non-football whiz, they might as well be speaking Klingon.

“I’ve sat in on their meetings before and I’m like, ‘What is happening?’ ” joked associate athletic director for media relations Kevin Davis, who’s been at CCU since Chadwell arrived in 2017.

It’s this detail-oriented and fun-loving approach that Chadwell has mastered in his time as a head coach — most of which has come as far from the national spotlight as humanly possible.

He was hired as the head coach at North Greenville at just 32 years old following stints as an assistant at Charleston Southern and East Tennessee State, his alma mater.

The North Greenville job was so undesirable, Chadwell beat out finalists that included a Newberry College assistant and a professor whose brother coached high school football — both of whom turned it down.

“I remember I was like, ‘Oh crap, I wonder if I can get my old job back (at Charleston Southern)?’ ” Chadwell quipped of his initial impressions of the underfunded Upstate school.

Fighting through a 3-8 inaugural campaign, he forged ahead with seasons of 9-3 and 11-3 — the latter of which ended in the NCAA Division II quarterfinals.

That led to gigs at Delta State, Charleston Southern and, finally, CCU, where Chadwell was initially hired as the coach-in-waiting under Joe Moglia. He was eventually given the interim gig in 2017 following Moglia’s sudden sidelining due to mold in his lungs. Moglia returned as head coach in 2018, before stepping aside for his up-and-coming offensive coordinator the next year.

Chadwell will tell you there’s been value in succeeding sans any Power Five experience, a résumé hole detractors point toward when his name gets thrown around for jobs outside of Conway.

It’s at places like NGU he was given the chance to make mistakes, he said, minus the outside pressure to perform as immediately as the FBS ecosystem necessitates.

Those lower levels, in practice, are where he worked out the kinks that are bearing fruit today in Conway.

“There was a lot of trial, a lot of error,” Chadwell said. “But any time we have success anywhere else, I always look back on those people (at North Greenville), because they’re the ones that first believed in it.”

Chadwell’s future with Chanticleers in Conway

Glenn and Ashley Cox are loyal Tennessee football season-ticket holders. Their daughter, Peyton, is named after a certain former Volunteers quarterback of the same name.

So, why are they sitting in a Walk-On’s restaurant in Carolina Forest on a random Wednesday in the fall?

That would be their old high school pal seated alongside Coastal Carolina radio man Joe Cashion.

“Jamey’s always been an awesome guy,” Glenn said. “He’s obviously a great athlete and everything, but friends to everybody.”

Walk-On’s buzzed Wednesday, the night of Chadwell’s weekly radio show. Coastal Carolina fans lined the booths on either side of the lower portion of the chain Louisiana-flavored eatery donning teal and white.

The scene is a far cry from the call-in shows Chadwell hosted in the early days of his head-coaching tenure. Previously held at a local bowling alley, a patron, after one particular program, quite literally asked Chadwell, “Who are you?”

That’s not the case these days. Fans clamor for Chadwell’s autograph when the show gets especially packed. Claps echo around the room ahead of any commercial break.

Coastal Carolina is still fighting for publicity in the tourist-laden haven it calls home, but winning has helped in the public consciousness and in physical program-building.

“You’re always trying to find ways to make stuff better,” Coastal Carolina chief of staff Brad Queen said. “You’re always kind of looking at both sides like, ‘Hey, we’ve done a great job, but we’ve still got more to do.’ Because whenever you go visit some of these schools in the Sun Belt, there’s some beautiful, beautiful facilities out there and they’re all getting more and more.”

Hogue jokes every time he sees a new job open, Chadwell seems to get listed as a candidate by national news outlets.

Chadwell is largely open and honest about overtures from bigger schools. Tennessee and South Carolina were the most serious suitors during their respective searches in the 2020 cycle, though no offers were made.

Heading into this week’s homecoming game against Old Dominion, Chadwell isn’t concerned with which Power Five program is the flavor of the week. He’s got a remaining schedule that includes Virginia and Sun Belt front-runners James Madison and Appalachian State to worry about.

Sooner than later, though, someone is going to take a swing on the Tennessee native-turned-South Carolinian.

Whenever that day comes, administrators better have their pronunciations down to a “Shawn-t.”