Latest news with #Schnall
Chicago Tribune
12 hours ago
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Coastal Carolina's retired coach is enjoying team's run to the College World Series finals from afar
OMAHA, Neb. — Considering the run Coastal Carolina's baseball team is on — 26 straight wins on the way to the College World Series finals — it would be understandable if Gary Gilmore had second thoughts about retiring after last season. Not a one, he said by phone Thursday as he pulled out of the driveway of his home in North Litchfield Beach, S.C., to head to his grandson's travel team tournament. The 67-year-old Gilmore attended no Coastal Carolina games this season until the Chanticleers' first two in the CWS last weekend. He sat in the stands at Charles Schwab Field, uncomfortable as it was for the man who spent 29 years at the helm, led the 2016 Chanticleers to the national championship and is regarded as the godfather of program. Gilmore said he and his family would be back for the best-of-three finals against LSU starting Saturday night. 'Is there a piece of my DNA in this thing? Absolutely. There's no doubt about it,' Gilmore said, 'and I hope it will be for all time.' But the 2025 Chanticleers are first-year coach Kevin Schnall's team, and Gilmore wanted to make a clean break and not give the impression he was looking over Schnall's shoulder. Schnall was Gilmore's assistant for more than two decades. The grind of building Coastal Carolina into a perennial NCAA Tournament team and CWS contender caused Gilmore to sacrifice time with his wife and two children to chase championships, as coaches are wont to do. When he was hired as head coach in 1996, his office was in a trailer with no plumbing behind a weed-filled outfield. Twenty years later, the Chanticleers were national champions. Gilmore could have said his work was done at that point, but he wasn't quite ready. In January 2020, he got a devastating reality check when he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It had spread to his liver, but it was a type that tends to be more manageable than the more common variety that invariably carries a grim prognosis. He went through chemotherapy and traveled regularly for treatments, first to Houston and now Denver. In 2023, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and had surgery to remove the gland. Gilmore tolerated his treatments for both cancers better than expected. He missed only three games and rarely a practice. All he went through, though, made him realize the pull to dedicate more of himself to his family was getting stronger. He wanted to reconnect with his wife and children and build strong bonds with his four grandchildren. 'I feel awesome,' he said. 'I have what I have. I've got the best doctor in the world. His goal is to manage all this stuff. At some point I'm going to have a life-changing surgery where they can get everything in my liver completely stabilized, and they have confidence that's going to last me a long time. I'll hopefully rid myself of some of this.' Doctors initially told him the worst-case scenario was that he would live two more years; the 'dream' was to make it 10. Now the outlook is better. 'How things have gone, God willing, they can keep me with a good quality of life and hopefully something else will get me before that,' he said. Gilmore acknowledges the game isn't the same now with name, image and likeness opportunities and, soon, direct payments to athletes becoming larger factors in putting together and keeping together a team. 'The NIL, the analytics, the portal, I honestly think this is a younger guy's game,' he said. 'Guys like me, we coached the game with our eyes. We didn't coach with analytics and this and that. We recruited with our eyes. We didn't recruit over the internet to a large degree. We went out and saw guys play, evaluated people. 'That's not the reason I got out of it, ultimately. I've got two stage-4 cancers in my body. I feel healthy as I can, and I'm lucky and blessed I have the health I do. All that played out in my mind. You're 67 years old, you've got four grandkids. What are the choices you want to make here?' Right now, his choice is to be with his family while he enjoys watching the team he helped build chase a second national championship and see all that is possible for the 10,000-student school in the Myrtle Beach area that had no national athletic identity before 2016. 'Just because of the size of school, people want to label you Cinderella,' Gilmore said. 'We were a Cinderella in '16, absolutely, no doubt about it. We left Omaha still explaining what our mascot was, and Kevin's still doing it today.' Indeed, Schnall gave a stern pronunciation lesson to the media after his team beat Oregon State on Sunday, opening his news conference: 'Everybody say it with me: SHON-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers! Not SHAN-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers!' However you say it, the Chanticleers are well-suited to the cavernous CWS ballpark. They don't hit many home runs, but they get on base, get timely hits, have strong pitching and play outstanding defense. They're also hot. 'I've never seen anything like this,' Gilmore said. 'Crazy.'
USA Today
13 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
First-year coaches to reach College World Series finals: Coastal Carolina's Kevin Schnall latest
When No. 13 Coastal Carolina upset No. 4 Auburn in the Auburn Super Regional to return to the College World Series for the second time in program history, Chanticleers coach Kevin Schnall made a statement that soon became viral: His team was no Cinderella. "This is not a Cinderella story. We're one of the most premier, most successful college baseball programs in the entire country," Schnall said then. That statement from Schnall couldn't be closer to the truth, as the Chanticleers have continued to be the hottest team in the country in Omaha by going a perfect 3-0 to return to their second-ever CWS championship series. REQUIRED READING: College World Series bracket: Scores, schedule, teams, times, TV channel for CWS In his first season taking over at his alma mater for his former college coach and boss, Gary Gilmore, the 48-year-old Schnall has led Coastal Carolina on a historic run while associating his name with a select handful of first-year college baseball coaches. "It really hasn't hit me yet. I'll be honest. I'm still trying to digest that game. I know we're going to the World Series finals, and whoever wins two out of three brings home a national championship," Schnall said after Coastal Carolina's CWS semifinal win on leading his alma mater to the finals in his first season. He added: "No, it hasn't really hit me yet because one of my, maybe, flaws is I'm rarely satisfied. This is satisfying, but I'm not satisfied yet." That historic run continues at 7 p.m. ET on June 21 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha when Schnall manages his first CWS championship game as a head coach against No. 6 LSU. Here's what you need to know about first-year head coaches who have reached the College World Series and the College World Series championship: Who was the last first-year college baseball coach that made the College World Series finals? Before Schnall helped Coastal Carolina punch its ticket back to the College World Series championship series, the last first-year coach to reach the final was Jay Johnson in 2016, when the now-LSU coach was coaching at Arizona. That trip to the 2016 CWS championship for Johnson came against Coastal Carolina. After taking a 1-0 lead against the Chanticleers, Johnson's Wildcats lost the next two games to lose the best-of-three series. History of first-year college baseball coaches in CWS Overseeing the only remaining team unbeaten in the 2025 NCAA baseball tournament, Schnall is the seventh head coach to lead his first team at a school to Omaha since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1999. He is believed to be the fourth head coach to lead his team to the CWS in his first year as a college baseball head coach. Coastal Carolina says, Schnall is the sixth head coach to reach the CWS championship series in his first season with a school in tournament history. A series win vs. LSU would make Schnall the first among his five former predecessors to win the whole tournament in his first season. Here's a list of head coaches who have led their respective programs to the College World Series in Year 1 since 1999, per ESPN and the NCAA Baseball X (formerly Twitter) account: Record at CWS in parentheses Kevin Schnall Coastal Carolina record Schnall has posted a 56-11 record in his first season leading his alma mater. Coastal Carolina's 56 wins this season led all Division I college baseball programs this year, plus set a program record for most wins in a single season. The 2025 CWS championship series is the second time that Schnall will coach in the final round of the CWS. He was an assistant coach on Coastal Carolina's 2016 national championship team. Here's a game-by-game breakdown of how Schnall has led Coastal Carolina to the 2025 College World Series championship series:
Fox Sports
2 days ago
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Coastal Carolina is in CWS finals, and retired coach Gary Gilmore is happy to watch from afar
Associated Press OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Considering the run Coastal Carolina's baseball team is on — 26 straight wins on the way to the College World Series finals — it would be understandable if Gary Gilmore had second thoughts about retiring after last season. Not a one, he said by phone Thursday as he pulled out of the driveway of his home in North Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, to head to his grandson's travel team tournament. The 67-year-old Gilmore attended no Coastal Carolina games this season until the Chanticleers' first two in the CWS last weekend. He sat in the stands at Charles Schwab Field, uncomfortable as it was for the man who spent 29 years at the helm, led the 2016 Chanticleers to the national championship and is regarded as the godfather of program. Gilmore said he and his family would be back for the best-of-three finals against LSU starting Saturday night. 'Is there a piece of my DNA in this thing? Absolutely. There's no doubt about it,' Gilmore said, 'and I hope it will be for all time.' But the 2025 Chanticleers are first-year coach Kevin Schnall's team, and Gilmore said he wanted to make a clean break and not give the impression he was looking over Schnall's shoulder. Schnall was Gilmore's assistant for more than two decades. The grind of building Coastal Carolina into a perennial NCAA Tournament team and CWS contender caused Gilmore to sacrifice time with his wife and two children to chase championships, as coaches are wont to do. When he was hired as head coach in 1996, his office was in a trailer with no plumbing behind a weed-filled outfield. Twenty years later, the Chanticleers were national champions. Gilmore could have said his work was done at that point, but he wasn't ready quite yet. In January 2020, he got a devastating reality check when he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It had spread to his liver, but it was a type that tends to be more manageable than the more common variety that invariably carries a grim prognosis. He went through chemotherapy and traveled regularly first to Houston, and now Denver, for treatments. In 2023, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and had surgery to remove the gland. Gilmore tolerated his treatments for both cancers better than expected. He missed only three games and rarely a practice. All he went through, though, made him realize the pull to dedicate more of himself to his family was getting stronger. He wanted to reconnect with his wife and children and build strong bonds with his four grandchildren. 'I feel awesome,' he said. 'I have what I have. I've got the best doctor in the world. His goal is to manage all this stuff. At some point I'm going to have a life-changing surgery where they can get everything in my liver completely stabilized, and they have confidence that's going to last me a long time. I'll hopefully rid myself of some of this.' Doctors initially told him the worst-case scenario was that he would live two more years; the 'dream' was to make it 10. Now the outlook is better. 'How things have gone, God willing, they can keep me with a good quality of life and hopefully something else will get me before that,' he said. Gilmore acknowledges the game isn't the same now with name, image and likeness opportunities and, soon, direct payments to athletes becoming larger factors in putting together and keeping together a team. 'The NIL, the analytics, the portal,' he said. "I honestly think this is a younger guy's game, to be honest with you. Guys like me, we coached the game with our eyes. We didn't coach with analytics and this and that. We recruited with our eyes. We didn't recruit over the internet to a large degree. We went out and saw guys play, evaluated people. 'That's not the reason I got out of it, ultimately. I've got two stage-4 cancers is my body. I feel healthy as I can, and I'm lucky and blessed I have the health I do. All that played out in my mind. You're 67 years old, you got four grandkids. What are the choices you want to make here?' Right now, his choice is to be with his family while he enjoys watching the team he helped build chase a second national championship and see all that is possible for the 10,000-student school in the Myrtle Beach area that had no national athletic identity before 2016. 'Just because of the size of school, people want to label you Cinderella,' Gilmore said. 'We were a Cinderella in '16, absolutely, no doubt about it. We left Omaha still explaining what our mascot was, and Kevin's still doing it today.' Indeed, Schnall gave a stern pronunciation lesson to the media after his team beat Oregon State on Sunday, opening his news conference: 'Everybody say it with me: SHON-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers! Not SHAN-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers!' However you say it, the Chanticleers are well-suited to the cavernous CWS ballpark. They don't hit many home runs, but they get on base, get timely hits, have strong pitching and play outstanding defense. They're also hot. 'I've never seen anything like this,' Gilmore said. 'Crazy.' ___ AP college sports: recommended in this topic
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
Coastal Carolina is in CWS finals, and retired coach Gary Gilmore is happy to watch from afar
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Considering the run Coastal Carolina's baseball team is on — 26 straight wins on the way to the College World Series finals — it would be understandable if Gary Gilmore had second thoughts about retiring after last season. Not a one, he said by phone Thursday as he pulled out of the driveway of his home in North Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, to head to his grandson's travel team tournament. The 67-year-old Gilmore attended no Coastal Carolina games this season until the Chanticleers' first two in the CWS last weekend. He sat in the stands at Charles Schwab Field, uncomfortable as it was for the man who spent 29 years at the helm, led the 2016 Chanticleers to the national championship and is regarded as the godfather of program. Gilmore said he and his family would be back for the best-of-three finals against LSU starting Saturday night. 'Is there a piece of my DNA in this thing? Absolutely. There's no doubt about it,' Gilmore said, 'and I hope it will be for all time.' But the 2025 Chanticleers are first-year coach Kevin Schnall's team, and Gilmore said he wanted to make a clean break and not give the impression he was looking over Schnall's shoulder. Schnall was Gilmore's assistant for more than two decades. The grind of building Coastal Carolina into a perennial NCAA Tournament team and CWS contender caused Gilmore to sacrifice time with his wife and two children to chase championships, as coaches are wont to do. When he was hired as head coach in 1996, his office was in a trailer with no plumbing behind a weed-filled outfield. Twenty years later, the Chanticleers were national champions. Gilmore could have said his work was done at that point, but he wasn't ready quite yet. In January 2020, he got a devastating reality check when he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It had spread to his liver, but it was a type that tends to be more manageable than the more common variety that invariably carries a grim prognosis. He went through chemotherapy and traveled regularly first to Houston, and now Denver, for treatments. In 2023, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and had surgery to remove the gland. Gilmore tolerated his treatments for both cancers better than expected. He missed only three games and rarely a practice. All he went through, though, made him realize the pull to dedicate more of himself to his family was getting stronger. He wanted to reconnect with his wife and children and build strong bonds with his four grandchildren. 'I feel awesome,' he said. 'I have what I have. I've got the best doctor in the world. His goal is to manage all this stuff. At some point I'm going to have a life-changing surgery where they can get everything in my liver completely stabilized, and they have confidence that's going to last me a long time. I'll hopefully rid myself of some of this.' Doctors initially told him the worst-case scenario was that he would live two more years; the 'dream' was to make it 10. Now the outlook is better. 'How things have gone, God willing, they can keep me with a good quality of life and hopefully something else will get me before that,' he said. Gilmore acknowledges the game isn't the same now with name, image and likeness opportunities and, soon, direct payments to athletes becoming larger factors in putting together and keeping together a team. 'The NIL, the analytics, the portal,' he said. 'I honestly think this is a younger guy's game, to be honest with you. Guys like me, we coached the game with our eyes. We didn't coach with analytics and this and that. We recruited with our eyes. We didn't recruit over the internet to a large degree. We went out and saw guys play, evaluated people. 'That's not the reason I got out of it, ultimately. I've got two stage-4 cancers is my body. I feel healthy as I can, and I'm lucky and blessed I have the health I do. All that played out in my mind. You're 67 years old, you got four grandkids. What are the choices you want to make here?' Right now, his choice is to be with his family while he enjoys watching the team he helped build chase a second national championship and see all that is possible for the 10,000-student school in the Myrtle Beach area that had no national athletic identity before 2016. 'Just because of the size of school, people want to label you Cinderella,' Gilmore said. 'We were a Cinderella in '16, absolutely, no doubt about it. We left Omaha still explaining what our mascot was, and Kevin's still doing it today.' Indeed, Schnall gave a stern pronunciation lesson to the media after his team beat Oregon State on Sunday, opening his news conference: 'Everybody say it with me: SHON-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers! Not SHAN-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers!' However you say it, the Chanticleers are well-suited to the cavernous CWS ballpark. They don't hit many home runs, but they get on base, get timely hits, have strong pitching and play outstanding defense. They're also hot. 'I've never seen anything like this,' Gilmore said. 'Crazy.' ___ AP college sports:
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Coastal Carolina is in CWS finals, and retired coach Gary Gilmore is happy to watch from afar
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Considering the run Coastal Carolina's baseball team is on — 26 straight wins on the way to the College World Series finals — it would be understandable if Gary Gilmore had second thoughts about retiring after last season. Not a one, he said by phone Thursday as he pulled out of the driveway of his home in North Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, to head to his grandson's travel team tournament. The 67-year-old Gilmore attended no Coastal Carolina games this season until the Chanticleers' first two in the CWS last weekend. He sat in the stands at Charles Schwab Field, uncomfortable as it was for the man who spent 29 years at the helm, led the 2016 Chanticleers to the national championship and is regarded as the godfather of program. Gilmore said he and his family would be back for the best-of-three finals against LSU starting Saturday night. 'Is there a piece of my DNA in this thing? Absolutely. There's no doubt about it,' Gilmore said, 'and I hope it will be for all time.' But the 2025 Chanticleers are first-year coach Kevin Schnall's team, and Gilmore said he wanted to make a clean break and not give the impression he was looking over Schnall's shoulder. Schnall was Gilmore's assistant for more than two decades. The grind of building Coastal Carolina into a perennial NCAA Tournament team and CWS contender caused Gilmore to sacrifice time with his wife and two children to chase championships, as coaches are wont to do. When he was hired as head coach in 1996, his office was in a trailer with no plumbing behind a weed-filled outfield. Twenty years later, the Chanticleers were national champions. Gilmore could have said his work was done at that point, but he wasn't ready quite yet. In January 2020, he got a devastating reality check when he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It had spread to his liver, but it was a type that tends to be more manageable than the more common variety that invariably carries a grim prognosis. He went through chemotherapy and traveled regularly first to Houston, and now Denver, for treatments. In 2023, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and had surgery to remove the gland. Gilmore tolerated his treatments for both cancers better than expected. He missed only three games and rarely a practice. All he went through, though, made him realize the pull to dedicate more of himself to his family was getting stronger. He wanted to reconnect with his wife and children and build strong bonds with his four grandchildren. 'I feel awesome,' he said. 'I have what I have. I've got the best doctor in the world. His goal is to manage all this stuff. At some point I'm going to have a life-changing surgery where they can get everything in my liver completely stabilized, and they have confidence that's going to last me a long time. I'll hopefully rid myself of some of this.' Doctors initially told him the worst-case scenario was that he would live two more years; the 'dream' was to make it 10. Now the outlook is better. 'How things have gone, God willing, they can keep me with a good quality of life and hopefully something else will get me before that,' he said. Gilmore acknowledges the game isn't the same now with name, image and likeness opportunities and, soon, direct payments to athletes becoming larger factors in putting together and keeping together a team. 'The NIL, the analytics, the portal,' he said. "I honestly think this is a younger guy's game, to be honest with you. Guys like me, we coached the game with our eyes. We didn't coach with analytics and this and that. We recruited with our eyes. We didn't recruit over the internet to a large degree. We went out and saw guys play, evaluated people. 'That's not the reason I got out of it, ultimately. I've got two stage-4 cancers is my body. I feel healthy as I can, and I'm lucky and blessed I have the health I do. All that played out in my mind. You're 67 years old, you got four grandkids. What are the choices you want to make here?' Right now, his choice is to be with his family while he enjoys watching the team he helped build chase a second national championship and see all that is possible for the 10,000-student school in the Myrtle Beach area that had no national athletic identity before 2016. 'Just because of the size of school, people want to label you Cinderella,' Gilmore said. 'We were a Cinderella in '16, absolutely, no doubt about it. We left Omaha still explaining what our mascot was, and Kevin's still doing it today.' Indeed, Schnall gave a stern pronunciation lesson to the media after his team beat Oregon State on Sunday, opening his news conference: 'Everybody say it with me: SHON-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers! Not SHAN-tuh-cleers! SHON-tuh-cleers!' However you say it, the Chanticleers are well-suited to the cavernous CWS ballpark. They don't hit many home runs, but they get on base, get timely hits, have strong pitching and play outstanding defense. 'I've never seen anything like this,' Gilmore said. 'Crazy.' ___
