From D-II to Mizzou: Chism's hard work paying off
The past few times Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz and his players have spoken with reporters, one name has come up more than any other. It hasn’t been reigning first-team all-SEC linebacker Nick Bolton, nor leading sack man Kobie Whiteside, or even senior Larry Rountree III, who has a chance to break the program record for most career yards by a running back. Instead, everybody seems to be talking about a new addition to the roster who has never played a snap against Division I competition, much less in the SEC.
Drinkwitz is so high on wide receiver Keke Chism that, after every question had been asked at a virtual press conference last month, he went out of his way to praise him, saying “that dude’s an absolute freakin’ stud and a steal.” This week, as players have been asked to pick one player who might surprise people this season, Chism has been by far the most popular answer.
“He’s going to open up a lot of eyes,” tackle Hyrin White said. “His work ethic is amazing. It’s different from a lot of wide receivers.”
Three months ago, almost no one knew Chism’s name. The former high school quarterback spent four years at Division-II Angelo State, where he wasn’t even good enough to get on the field upon arrival, prompting him to redshirt. White’s compliment revealed how he’s managed to transform himself into a likely SEC starter — virtually everyone who has come into contact with Chism mentions his work ethic. Now, Chism hopes to use that same determination to parlay this opportunity on a stage he never thought he’d reach into a chance at an even higher level: the NFL.
“I know that this is an opportunity that’s going to have a huge impact on my life, for sure,” Chism said.
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Chism can’t remember a time before he played sports. His father, Torre Chism, and mother, Tegra Chism, started their youngest of three children in little league flag football when he was three years old — technically illegal, as the minimum age was supposed to be four. It didn’t take long to realize he was gifted athletically, and sports became an everyday, year-round activity. “We never saw a weekend at home,” Tegra said.
Even during his years at Daingerfield high school in eastern Texas, Chism split his time between quarterbacking the football team, starting at point guard for the basketball team and both pitching and playing shortstop on the baseball diamond. The spring of his senior year, he took up track as well, running leadoff for the school’s 4x400 relay. Curtis Lewis, who served as the head basketball coach and an assistant football coach while Chism attended Daingerfield, said he thought Chism’s future looked brightest in basketball, his mother’s sport in college.
“He was a 6-5 point guard with that length that he’s got, and he could shoot it, man, and he would take you off the dribble and put his elbows in the rim,” Lewis recalled. “He was just that good.”
Even more than his athletic ability, Lewis said Chism’s work ethic and leadership stood out while he was at Daingerfield. Frequently, if he came to school on the weekends, he would find Chism running agility ladders, getting shots up in the gym or working on timing routes with the other quarterbacks and receivers. Lewis said Chism “never had a bad day.” And if someone else did, he wasn’t afraid to get in their face, even if it was Denzel Mims, Chism’s high school teammate who starred at Baylor and got picked by the New York Jets in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft.
“I’ve seen times where if Denzel didn’t come to play or come to practice, he would get in Denzel’s chest,” Lewis said of Chism. “And Denzel was the big man on campus. But he didn’t care.”
Perhaps because he saw what happened if his older brother and sister got in trouble, Tegra said the youngest Chism has always kept on the straight and narrow. He’s only needed two “whoopins” in 22 years, she said. He’s always been driven, too, never needing someone else to tell him to work harder or spend more time practicing something.
Chism credits his parents for instilling that drive. He decided early in high school that he preferred football to all other sports, and he wanted to play in college. To boost his chances, his parents whisked him to camps on just about every free weekend. Tegra said the family “faithfully attended” the Dallas Cowboys youth camp and the Jay Novacek camp in Denton every year, plus other combine camps and quarterback camps. Chism's whole life, Tegra has worked two jobs, in large part to be able to afford the athletics-related expenses for her children.
“My dad, he has a great job, and he works so much at his one job, it seems like he has two,” Chism said. “And my mom, she’s worked two jobs my whole life. And just seeing the two most important people in my life work so hard and sacrifice so much so I can be able to do the things that I do, it gives me so much motivation. Every day I wake up and I want to be the best for them, and that’s why I go as hard as I do, because one day I want to put myself in a situation where they are taken care of and don’t have to work that hard, because it honestly breaks my heart seeing the number one woman in my life, my mom, having to work as hard as she does to support us."
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Midway through his high school career, it became clear that Chism’s college prospects would be better if he switched from quarterback to a position like defensive back or wide receiver. So, prior to his junior year, he took up catching the ball instead of throwing it.
Two games into the season, Daingerfield’s starting quarterback tore his ACL. Chism took his place behind center for the rest of the season. His senior year, he again began the season at wideout, but after another season-ending injury to the starting quarterback, he shifted back to his old position.
Chism said he realized at the time that not accumulating game tape at receiver would likely hurt his chances of being recruited, but the team didn’t have a better option at quarterback, so making the switch wasn’t even a decision.
“It kind of had to be next man up to put the team in the best position to win, and at that time, that was me, so I had to step in and do what I had to do,” he said.
Despite the fact that he only played four full high school games as a wide receiver, Chism’s athletic ability attracted the attention of several local college programs. He took visits to a few FCS schools, including Stephen F. Austin, Tegra said, but didn’t feel like he fit in. He settled instead on Angelo State. Chism said he believed he could play at a higher level, but given his lack of in-game production at wide receiver, he understood why so few Division-I programs came calling. What he didn’t expect, however, was to redshirt during his first season on campus.
“That kind of hurt me, because when I first got there I felt like I had the ability to play,” Chism said. “But looking back on it, redshirting was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it set me up for the things that I’m doing now. So I just had to approach those things as a challenge to get better and to work harder.”
Instead of getting discouraged, Chism used the redshirt season to bulk up his body and sharpen his skillset. He gained about 20 pounds and, for the first time in his life, spent a full year playing only football, and doing so only at wide receiver. He credited his position coach, Jason Johnson, for turning him from an athlete into a wideout.
Chism still had several players ahead of him on the depth chart as a redshirt freshman, but he made an impact, catching 28 passes for 384 yards and four touchdowns. The following season, he exploded for 69 catches, 959 yards and six scores. He added 878 yards and six more scores last season, which moved him to sixth all-time on Angelo State’s receiving list.
After his breakout 2018 season, Chism first started thinking about the possibility of playing college football at a higher level. Always a high academic performer, he had taken dual-credit courses while in high school that gave him a head start on earning college credits, and it took him just five semesters at Angelo State to earn his bachelor’s degree. Graduating meant he could transfer to another program without sitting out a season.
Still, Chism opted to return to Angelo State in 2019, and at least initially, he thought he’d do so again in 2020 for his final college season. The COVID-19 pandemic that has wreaked havoc on college football actually helped change his mind. During the throes of the pandemic, Angelo State shut down its athletics facilities, so Chism went to Dallas to work out. There, he trained with a group that included several NFL wide receivers: Tampa Bay’s Chris Godwin, Atlanta’s Laquon Treadwell, the New York Giants’ Corey Coleman and more. Chism learned a lot from the pros about the finer points of playing receiver, but he also learned something about himself: he could hang with some of the best players in the world at his position. His childhood dream of playing in the NFL might be attainable.
To get there, however, he realized that he needed to avoid the situation he found himself in coming out of high school and put himself on tape playing against NFL-caliber defensive backs.
“Seeing the things that they do and the things that I can do just really gave me a confidence within myself that I’m not there yet, but I’m close,” Chism said. “... So that really played a big part in (the decision to transfer).”
When Chism called Tegra to tell her he was thinking about putting his name in the transfer portal, she “got jitters.” Chism was nervous, as well; he had no idea whether any Division I teams, much less high-major teams, would have a spot for him. He called it “a leap of faith” and “the biggest decision I’ve made in my life up to this point.”
“I didn’t know if anything would come about for it or if it would open up for me the way that it did,” he said. “Just having that belief and that confidence in myself to say that I really want to play against the best each and every Saturday, that was the biggest thing that made me pull the trigger.”
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It took roughly 15 minutes for Chism to receive reassurance about his decision to transfer. That’s when his phone started “ringing off the hook.” Both Tegra and her son said he hardly slept for the first few days, he was doing so many Zoom calls.
Ultimately, about 10 Division I schools expressed interest. Chism quickly built a rapport with Drinkwitz and wide receivers coach Bush Hamdan. Less than a week after putting his name in the transfer portal, he committed to Missouri.
Drinkwitz said the staff had to do a little extra homework to make sure Chism could make the jump from Division-II to the SEC, but between his game tape and the sterling character reviews they heard, it didn’t take long before they were sold. Chism cited the family feel among the new staff as the primary reason why he picked the Tigers.
“He looks for family-oriented organizations, coaches and staff that seem to care about the players beyond football,” Tegra said. “That was a big thing.”
Before entering the transfer portal, Chism already believed he could make the transition to the Power Five level. Now, after just a few camp practices, he’s even more confident. He’s had no problems with the intensity of practice — he’s always loved practice, he said. The biggest difference, he feels, is the speed of the game. But that’s felt more and more normal with every practice, and he has found that his ability to use his 6-foot-4 frame to make contested catches translates well.
“I would just say the biggest difference for sure is just the timing, the speed of the game,” Chism said. “Everything happens a step faster. And the windows are a lot tighter. And so the biggest thing that’s going to be important for me is consistently making the contested catches. ... Getting used to constantly making catches with somebody on my back and somebody in my face, that’s something I work on each and every day, and that’s something that I’m confident I’ll be able to do at a high level.”
Those who have watched him practice certainly seem sold. Fellow receiver Jalen Knox and running back Tyler Badie both praised Chism this week. After just two camp practices, he became the first newcomer on the team to earn a jersey number, a new feature of the program under Drinkwitz. In addition to his playmaking ability, Drinkwitz said the appreciation Chism has shown for each opportunity has been refreshing.
“He's incredibly grateful for every opportunity he has,” Drinkwitz said. “He loves training table, he loves the weight room, he loves the training room, the treatment he gets. The opportunity that he has to be a Missouri Tiger, I think he's really taken advantage of it.”
Chism agreed; coming from a Division-II program, he’s not taking anything for granted. But he’s not just happy to be here. He wants to win, of course. Still the same team player who took over for the injured starting quarterback in high school, he said Wednesday that he’ll contribute whatever the team needs, even if it’s run-blocking.
But this season also represents an opportunity he didn’t think he’d have: a chance to prove he’s capable of playing in the NFL. Those who know Chism best have little doubt he’ll take advantage.
“He has a destination, and his destination has been to be able to enter the NFL,” Tegra said. “He wants to play on that next level, and he’s pretty much focused on whatever it takes to get an opportunity to play for the National Football League.”
“He gets that goal set in his mind, and man, he goes after it,” said Lewis. “You just be around him for a while, and you’ll understand, you’ll see it. ... I think Missouri got them a heck of a steal.”