Bronze Chauncey is dedicated

With the Pep Band setting the stage for excitement on Friday, Oct. 30, Coastal Carolina University President David A. DeCenzo officially dedicated the gleaming new bronze statue of Chauncey that welcomes fans to the entrance to the TD Sports Complex on Chanticleer Drive West.

DeCenzo praised the Chauncey sculpture project as a perfect example of “Experience Coastal,” the QED plan that focuses on providing hands-on experience for students. "It’s what makes us unique,” he said.

“On some campuses, the relation between the arts and athletics is cold and distant, but not here,” said Dan Ennis, dean of the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Back in the 1960s, Ennis explained, it was an English professor who came up with the idea for Coastal's official mascot—Chauncey, from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." And now, after more than a year in the making, art faculty member and sculptor M. Logan Woodle, with the aid of his students, has created the proud bronze Chauncey that stands in a boxer’s pose with clenched fists, ready to take on all foes.

Ennis recounted how, instead of commissioning an outside sculptor to create an iconic mascot statue for the new campus sport complex, former visual arts chair Arne Flaten suggested that the art department build the piece on campus and engage students in the process. Woodle was chosen to lead the project, which began life as small clay model and progressed to 400 pounds of oil-based clay on a metal superstructure. The bronze casting was executed in CCU's new state-of-the-art sculpture yard, which was upgraded to handle the project and can now be used to support a full scale sculpture program.

Students were involved in all stages of the project, and three of them, Ariana Sellers, Heather Schramm and Craig Stevens, were on hand for the dedication.