LEAVING THE COMFORTABLE PLACE
1/22/2021 3:16:00 PM | Football
Stuckey Takes Another Leap of Faith with Move From Clemson
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Chansi Stuckey went to Clemson as an 18-year-old freshman nearly two decades ago and got his start in coaching there as well. For him, Clemson is like a cozy blanket or "nice fire to sit beside."
"Everything is perfect," he said. "You're winning, there's one vision, you know everybody there, you've got a great head coach who's young. Why would I leave this?"
At first, he didn't understand when one of his mentors quoted Thessalonians 5:6 and said, "Don't sleep."
"And then I saw it," he said. "It's so comfortable, it's so cozy. We always go to the playoffs, I feel so good about this fire. But, if you want to grow and truly do what God's told you to do, you've got to step away, you've got to step out."
Just two years after uprooting his family from Los Angeles to take a video GA position with Clemson football, the former NFL receiver, actor, broadcaster and minister took another leap of faith in joining Dave Aranda's staff at Baylor as the Bears' receivers coach.
"I got so lucky, because this is a place where it's in the infant stages of being Clemson," Stuckey said. "The only difference between Coach Aranda and Coach (Dabo) Swinney is one is on 1,000 all the time, and Coach Aranda is more even keel. He's constant, can't get too high, can't get too low. But by him being constant allows me to be my high-energy (self). Let's freakin' go! I get to be the young guy, energetic . . . I get to be that guy. It's just a special, special place here."
Talking with Swinney and other Clemson people, Aranda said Stuckey is "just a home run" for a staff that also added offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and offensive line coach Eric Mateos from BYU following the 2020 season.
"You see the strength of his ability now," Aranda said of Stuckey. "It's very evident, though, in what it can be. . . . I think there's an enthusiasm and there's an authentic heart that's in there. When you're sitting across from him, you feel it. And I know our players will."
A native of Warner Robins, Ga., Stuckey was more of a baseball and basketball player growing up, "traveling all around the world playing AAU basketball," and didn't really take football seriously until his senior season at Northside High School.
Recruited by pretty much everybody, Stuckey initially committed to Tennessee and "probably would have gone to Florida, but that's when (Steve) Spurrier left." While he admittedly fell in love with every place he went, "there was just something special about Clemson."
"I ended up visiting there unofficially a second time, and that's when I was like, 'OK, this is where I want to go,''' he said. "It was a place where I could play basketball as well and be a quarterback. Woody Dantzler had just done his thing with 2,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing, first guy in college football history to do that. And they were pumping me up, saying, 'You can do that. You can do that.'''
Unable to beat out Charlie Whitehurst, a four-year starting quarterback for the Tigers, Stuckey made the move to receiver as a redshirt sophomore in 2004. Earning first-team all-conference honors as a senior in 2006, he finished his college career with 141 catches for 1,760 yards and seven touchdowns playing for a young receivers coach named Dabo Swinney.
"Coach Swinney had been on me for two years, 'Come on over. If you want to go to the NFL, come on over,''' Stuckey said. "A lot of people don't realize that I only played eight years at receiver – five years in the league and three years in college. But, I had a great window of learning the position in that amount of time.
"Coach Swinney pushed us hard, made us practice the fundamentals. Those are the same things he taught, principles-wise, in life: how to be a good person, how to be a leader, . . . being on all the time. And I can honestly say, he was the same guy as a receivers coach that he is now. If you change your mindset and you commit to the Lord and you process through the pain, there is so much on the other side."
Drafted in the seventh round with the 235th pick overall by the New York Jets, Stuckey played five years in the NFL with the Jets, Cleveland Browns and Arizona Cardinals. He had three seasons of 30-plus catches, hauling in a career-best 40 passes for 346 yards with the Browns in 2010.
"I learned so much in the NFL, by being in New York and getting to deal with the media. It was just awesome, some great people," he said. "Being in a city like that was just amazing. For a kid from Georgia, when I first got there, I was like, 'Woah! What am I doing here?' Then, it clicked, and I loved it."
Working with former Pro Bowl receiver Henry Ellard with the Jets, Stuckey said he "learned all the little quirks and little moves you can do that people don't understand, they don't see."
"That's where I think I'm valuable, because anyone can coach the fundamentals of the game," he said. "But, this game is won by the intricate little details. . . . Everybody's fast, everybody's good. You're not just going to run by people. You may get away with that against an 0-10 team, but eventually you're going to play a team that's 10-0. And it's my fault that you didn't play well, because I let you get away with this and not doing it right. How you do anything is how you do everything."
Turning 28 during a fifth season in Arizona, Stuckey said God came to him in a dream and said his NFL days were over.
"Everybody wants to play 15 years, but it's God's plan. His word says we make plans in our hearts, but He guides our steps," Stuckey said.
"I knew it was time to go into the next transition. I went through a transition of, I guess, difficulty and growing, another umbilical-cord cutting. Because everything had been planned: high school, college, NFL. So, now what?"
Jumping into broadcasting, Stuckey did some work with Sports New York and Fox Sports in Las Vegas and also had some acting roles in the TV series, Diary of an Insecure Boyfriend, as well as uncredited roles as a football player in the movies, Focus and The Best Man Holiday.
"Every time I would start to get a little traction, the door would close," he said. "But, when I got into football, every door opened."
Swinney opened the door after a 2018 season that saw the Tigers go 15-0 and win the national championship. Since the CFP national championship game was held just up the road in Santa Clara, Calif., Stuckey got to hang out with the team all week and was there for Clemson's 44-16 win over Alabama.
"It was humbling. I told my wife, "The Lord has really put this in my heart (to go into coaching),''' Stuckey said. "My wife was like, 'Clemson Football? What is going on? We live in California, you're acting.' But, when I called Coach Swinney, he was like, 'Finally, I've been waiting for you."
Moving across the country, Stuckey got his foot in the door as a graduate assistant working with the video department.
"I felt in my heart of hearts, I had to do this," he said. "It wasn't ego, it wasn't for money. (God) said, 'You have to do this.' If I hadn't made that decision, we wouldn't be talking right now. It was just trusting God when it looks dark. I'm leaving L.A., I'm 35 years old and I'm the video GA? What the heck am I doing?"
Swinney promoted Stuckey to a full-time position in offensive player development for the 2020 season, when the Tigers (10-2) won their sixth-consecutive ACC championship and advanced to the CFP playoffs for the sixth year in a row before losing to Ohio State in the semifinals.
At Baylor, he gets to work with a talented corps of receivers that includes R.J. Sneed, Gavin Holmes, Tyquan Thornton and Josh Fleeks.
"Coach Swinney told me, 'If you're really going to do this, you're going to move up fast,''' Stuckey said. "I'm thinking I'm going to be at Clemson forever. Two years later, God did something even more amazing. I told my wife, 'What's happened here is not usual. This is the hand of God.' The Word says, 'If you honor me, I will honor you.' This is a phenomenal university. To have the opportunity to coach here, it's like Clemson in Texas."
Chansi and his wife, Summer, have a 4-year-old son, Aiden.
"He's very cerebral, like he's into building things," Chansi said of his son. "It's a good mix of running with the football, shooting the basketball, but, 'hey, let me build a robot.'''
Baylor Bear Insider
Chansi Stuckey went to Clemson as an 18-year-old freshman nearly two decades ago and got his start in coaching there as well. For him, Clemson is like a cozy blanket or "nice fire to sit beside."
"Everything is perfect," he said. "You're winning, there's one vision, you know everybody there, you've got a great head coach who's young. Why would I leave this?"
At first, he didn't understand when one of his mentors quoted Thessalonians 5:6 and said, "Don't sleep."
"And then I saw it," he said. "It's so comfortable, it's so cozy. We always go to the playoffs, I feel so good about this fire. But, if you want to grow and truly do what God's told you to do, you've got to step away, you've got to step out."
Just two years after uprooting his family from Los Angeles to take a video GA position with Clemson football, the former NFL receiver, actor, broadcaster and minister took another leap of faith in joining Dave Aranda's staff at Baylor as the Bears' receivers coach.
"I got so lucky, because this is a place where it's in the infant stages of being Clemson," Stuckey said. "The only difference between Coach Aranda and Coach (Dabo) Swinney is one is on 1,000 all the time, and Coach Aranda is more even keel. He's constant, can't get too high, can't get too low. But by him being constant allows me to be my high-energy (self). Let's freakin' go! I get to be the young guy, energetic . . . I get to be that guy. It's just a special, special place here."
Talking with Swinney and other Clemson people, Aranda said Stuckey is "just a home run" for a staff that also added offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and offensive line coach Eric Mateos from BYU following the 2020 season.
"You see the strength of his ability now," Aranda said of Stuckey. "It's very evident, though, in what it can be. . . . I think there's an enthusiasm and there's an authentic heart that's in there. When you're sitting across from him, you feel it. And I know our players will."
A native of Warner Robins, Ga., Stuckey was more of a baseball and basketball player growing up, "traveling all around the world playing AAU basketball," and didn't really take football seriously until his senior season at Northside High School.
Recruited by pretty much everybody, Stuckey initially committed to Tennessee and "probably would have gone to Florida, but that's when (Steve) Spurrier left." While he admittedly fell in love with every place he went, "there was just something special about Clemson."
"I ended up visiting there unofficially a second time, and that's when I was like, 'OK, this is where I want to go,''' he said. "It was a place where I could play basketball as well and be a quarterback. Woody Dantzler had just done his thing with 2,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing, first guy in college football history to do that. And they were pumping me up, saying, 'You can do that. You can do that.'''
Unable to beat out Charlie Whitehurst, a four-year starting quarterback for the Tigers, Stuckey made the move to receiver as a redshirt sophomore in 2004. Earning first-team all-conference honors as a senior in 2006, he finished his college career with 141 catches for 1,760 yards and seven touchdowns playing for a young receivers coach named Dabo Swinney.
"Coach Swinney had been on me for two years, 'Come on over. If you want to go to the NFL, come on over,''' Stuckey said. "A lot of people don't realize that I only played eight years at receiver – five years in the league and three years in college. But, I had a great window of learning the position in that amount of time.
"Coach Swinney pushed us hard, made us practice the fundamentals. Those are the same things he taught, principles-wise, in life: how to be a good person, how to be a leader, . . . being on all the time. And I can honestly say, he was the same guy as a receivers coach that he is now. If you change your mindset and you commit to the Lord and you process through the pain, there is so much on the other side."
Drafted in the seventh round with the 235th pick overall by the New York Jets, Stuckey played five years in the NFL with the Jets, Cleveland Browns and Arizona Cardinals. He had three seasons of 30-plus catches, hauling in a career-best 40 passes for 346 yards with the Browns in 2010.
"I learned so much in the NFL, by being in New York and getting to deal with the media. It was just awesome, some great people," he said. "Being in a city like that was just amazing. For a kid from Georgia, when I first got there, I was like, 'Woah! What am I doing here?' Then, it clicked, and I loved it."
Working with former Pro Bowl receiver Henry Ellard with the Jets, Stuckey said he "learned all the little quirks and little moves you can do that people don't understand, they don't see."
"That's where I think I'm valuable, because anyone can coach the fundamentals of the game," he said. "But, this game is won by the intricate little details. . . . Everybody's fast, everybody's good. You're not just going to run by people. You may get away with that against an 0-10 team, but eventually you're going to play a team that's 10-0. And it's my fault that you didn't play well, because I let you get away with this and not doing it right. How you do anything is how you do everything."
Turning 28 during a fifth season in Arizona, Stuckey said God came to him in a dream and said his NFL days were over.
"Everybody wants to play 15 years, but it's God's plan. His word says we make plans in our hearts, but He guides our steps," Stuckey said.
"I knew it was time to go into the next transition. I went through a transition of, I guess, difficulty and growing, another umbilical-cord cutting. Because everything had been planned: high school, college, NFL. So, now what?"
Jumping into broadcasting, Stuckey did some work with Sports New York and Fox Sports in Las Vegas and also had some acting roles in the TV series, Diary of an Insecure Boyfriend, as well as uncredited roles as a football player in the movies, Focus and The Best Man Holiday.
"Every time I would start to get a little traction, the door would close," he said. "But, when I got into football, every door opened."
Swinney opened the door after a 2018 season that saw the Tigers go 15-0 and win the national championship. Since the CFP national championship game was held just up the road in Santa Clara, Calif., Stuckey got to hang out with the team all week and was there for Clemson's 44-16 win over Alabama.
"It was humbling. I told my wife, "The Lord has really put this in my heart (to go into coaching),''' Stuckey said. "My wife was like, 'Clemson Football? What is going on? We live in California, you're acting.' But, when I called Coach Swinney, he was like, 'Finally, I've been waiting for you."
Moving across the country, Stuckey got his foot in the door as a graduate assistant working with the video department.
"I felt in my heart of hearts, I had to do this," he said. "It wasn't ego, it wasn't for money. (God) said, 'You have to do this.' If I hadn't made that decision, we wouldn't be talking right now. It was just trusting God when it looks dark. I'm leaving L.A., I'm 35 years old and I'm the video GA? What the heck am I doing?"
Swinney promoted Stuckey to a full-time position in offensive player development for the 2020 season, when the Tigers (10-2) won their sixth-consecutive ACC championship and advanced to the CFP playoffs for the sixth year in a row before losing to Ohio State in the semifinals.
At Baylor, he gets to work with a talented corps of receivers that includes R.J. Sneed, Gavin Holmes, Tyquan Thornton and Josh Fleeks.
"Coach Swinney told me, 'If you're really going to do this, you're going to move up fast,''' Stuckey said. "I'm thinking I'm going to be at Clemson forever. Two years later, God did something even more amazing. I told my wife, 'What's happened here is not usual. This is the hand of God.' The Word says, 'If you honor me, I will honor you.' This is a phenomenal university. To have the opportunity to coach here, it's like Clemson in Texas."
Chansi and his wife, Summer, have a 4-year-old son, Aiden.
"He's very cerebral, like he's into building things," Chansi said of his son. "It's a good mix of running with the football, shooting the basketball, but, 'hey, let me build a robot.'''
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