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Tony Chennault takes different path after college

08/25/2014, 11:39pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Carl Arrigale hadn’t seen anything like it.

All of the top ballplayers to come out of Neumann-Goretti--previously St. John Neumann--in Arrigale’s 15 years had followed a similar path. Rick Jackson, Scoop Jardine, Tyreek Duren, Daniel Stewart, D.J. Rivera, Earl Pettis and others all played Division I basketball after leaving South Philly, and would eventually find their way to pro clubs around the world.

Then came Tony Chennault. After splitting his four years at Wake Forest and Villanova, the 6-foot-2 point guard decided that was the end of his basketball career. Instead, it was time to throw himself into his next passion: filmmaking.

Since the season ended in late March, Chennault has thrown himself into directing. First, he helped put out a short film, “Chris,” a short film about a fictional young teen in the inner cities who was killed randomly in a drive-by shooting.

Last Friday, Chennault and his 267 Productions studio debuted the first episode of his web series “Oldhead,” choosing his old high school’s auditorium to present the 15-minute film.

“If you would have told me this when he was playing for me, that he wasn’t going to be playing basketball after college, I would have told you ‘no way,’” Arrigale said at the premiere. “I would have bet a lot of money the other way."

Chennault’s father, Anthony Chennault, also played basketball professionally in Europe. When he came home during the summers, he would see his son’s work ethic and determination, as well as his interest in things outside of just sports.

However, he didn’t expect his son to give up one for the other so quickly.

“That sort of shocked me a little bit, because I thought he’d do it a little later, or do it together,” he said. “But I know he wants to give it 110 percent, and I know he will.”

But for Tony, it had become clear that his basketball career was not going to extend past his college days.

“I just wanted to do something different,” he said. “All throughout my senior year I was contemplating with the idea, I didn’t have the fire in my belly that I once had playing basketball. And film gave me that drive that I had in basketball, so I just wanted to transfer all my energy from basketball to film.”

Similar to “Chris,” “Oldhead” is also about life in the inner cities, focusing on one young man’s choice between listening to his up-to-no-good friend and his older, wiser father figure, known as an “oldhead.” In the first episode, the main character decides to hang out with his friend and winds up dealing with the police.

For Chennault, his film outlet is a way of reaching out to the youth in the South and North Philly neighborhoods that see violence and unrest seemingly every day. He’s trying to show that there are opportunities there that they might not have originally considered.

“Inner-city kids who might not be good at sports or good at rapping, but they’re artists, they can paint real well, they can act real well, that’s not acceptable,” he said. “So I just wanted to be the pioneer for my community and making this art and this acting acceptable where I’m from.

"They’ve got to understand that making decisions is half the battle in life. If you’re a good decision-maker, it makes your life that much easier. So we’re stressing that in all of these episodes, that it’s not always good to get the quick dollar, sometimes it’s good to be legit. Everything in life is a process, we live in a society where we want immediate results and that’s not the case.”

Chennault is just one part of 267 Productions, along with fellow Nova alums and students Tom Smith, Rob Jennings, Josh Meekins, and Alex Ruane.

Similar to his coach, teammates and father, Chennault classmates were a little surprised when they heard what his plans were after college.

“Those guys thought I was lying that I really wanted to start a film business with those guys. After we did our first film, ‘Chris,’ we had a great turnout with the first premiere and those guys understood my vision and understood my passion for film, and they came on board with me.”

While all the members of the group help out with the writing, filming and editing, it is Chennault’s vision and experiences that guide the way.

For like too many ballplayers who’ve come out of this city’s tough neighborhoods, Chennault has seen the streets take away those who were close to him.

Just a few weeks after leaving Wake Forest and deciding to move back closer to home to be with his brother, Michael Jay, and his mother, Crystal Morton, Chennault found out that Jay had been shot--like Chris, the senseless victim of a random crime.

A day later, Jay died at 29 years old. And the pain didn’t stop there.

In August 2013, Chennault would lose his mother as well, to a heart attack.

“After losing my brother and my mom, I wanted to do something that I could leave behind a legacy and have an impact,” he said. “I felt with basketball, I had fun with the game, I did a lot of great things, I met a lot of great people, but with film I had a chance to touch an audience that doesn’t get a chance to be heard.”

[Chennault and his crew listen as former Vaux guard Karon Snead (far left) discusses his part in "Oldhead" at the miniseries' debut screening. (Photo: Josh Verlin)]
Chennault and his crew listen as former Vaux guards Karon Snead (far left) and Kyseem Roberts (second from left) discusses their parts in "Oldhead" at the miniseries' debut screening. (Photo: Josh Verlin)

Of course, Tony couldn’t completely ignore his basketball roots. In addition to casting former Vaux players Karon Snead and Kyseem Roberts in leading roles in “Oldhead,” he had his father and Arrigale make appearances in “Chris.”

“I was a little mad, I thought I did alright and I had a shot to make it in the second one,” Arrigale said with a laugh. “For the first time [acting], put it this way--I make a better coach.”

Up next for Chennault and the 267 crew is episode two of "Oldhead," which they hope to have ready by November 1. A Kickstarter page is hoping to raise $5,000 for the project, though with five days to go (as of this writing) they're still more than $4,000 short of that goal.

No matter what happens, expect Chennault to devote himself to filmmaking the way he devoted himself to basketball, the way he made it to play in the ACC and Big East and in multiple NCAA Tournaments.

For there's a bigger cause at stake here than just winning or losing a game.

“It gives these kids a voice, these kids don’t have [any] hope,” he said. “We’re trying to give them hope through film."