Gilmore says Schnall’s return provides continuity for future of CCU baseball program

Holding firm to his intentions to step away at the end of his current contract and wanting to ensure the program he built has a long-term plan beyond him, Coastal Carolina baseball coach Gary Gilmore formally announced Thursday that former longtime assistant coach Kevin Schnall has returned to the Chanticleers.

Gilmore had first confirmed the hiring to The Sun News a couple weeks ago, but Schnall did not want to comment at the time until his contract was official.

With the university issuing a news release Thursday, both coaches spoke at length about why this was the right move at the right time for each side as Schnall returns as Gilmore’s associate head coach and, for all intents and purposes, his designated successor.

The news release did not officially spell out a coach-in-waiting scenario, but Gilmore, whose contract runs through the 2020 season, and Schnall, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant coach at Central Florida, acknowledged that is the motivation behind the reunion.

“When [athletic director] Matt Hogue is ready to do that part, I’m fine with it,” Gilmore said of the formalities. “It was me who thought it was the right time. It was a very, very difficult decision. It weighed heavy on my heart for a long time, but I just truly felt it was the right time. And Kevin was also in the middle of a couple of [potential] head coaching jobs and I just felt like he was the right guy to follow here.

“He had been a great player here, he did a fantastic job as a coach here and so much of his blood and sweat was in this place. I didn’t want to see the opportunity slip away on both sides.”

Schnall, who was inducted into the university’s Sasser Athletics Hall of Fame, was named the Big South Player of the Year for Coastal Carolina in 1999 and then spent 12 seasons on Gilmore’s coaching staff from 2001-12 while contributing to the program’s emergence as a perennial NCAA tournament team. In returning, he takes the spot of Joe Hastings, who joined the Chants from Notre Dame in August of 2012 after Schnall left for Central Florida.

Gilmore said the veteran assistant coach is “in the mix on two or three things” for other coaching jobs and in the meantime is still employed in the Coastal Carolina athletic department. Hastings said in a text message Thursday that he is still trying to figure out his next move and indicated he did not want to comment further.

As for Schnall, he expressed multiple times in a phone conversation Thursday how thankful he and his family are to be back in Conway.

“Really it was just kind of out of nowhere at the end of the year. [Gilmore] reached out to me and basically just kind of gauged my interest and a lot of it stemmed from the fact that his contract is up in five years,” Schnall said. “Again, it’s a great honor the way he views me, both of us being Coastal guys, both of us sharing a lot of the same vision and ideas for this program – it just aligns.

“Three years ago when I left it was one of the most difficult decisions in my life personally and professionally, but I needed to be challenged differently and needed to expand my horizons so if and when I did return I returned with more experience and perspective that would allow me to make a greater impact on our student-athletes and this program. I didn’t think it would happen this fast.”

Both he and Gilmore always held in the back of their minds, though, that this would indeed happen at some point.

“Yeah, it was in my head because this place is so special to me,” Schnall said. “I like to say that we left three years ago but we were never gone, and absence really makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Absolutely,” Gilmore said of expecting all along that Schnall would one day return. “We talked about it before he left. Sometimes you can be around somebody in a program [for so long] … I was like that too at one point in time in my life – you feel like you’ve done everything you can do, there was no way to move forward. I think for him it was an opportunity to spread his wings, get under the direction of another head coach, take a look at how they do things and broaden his recruiting area, the whole nine yards. It was a good thing for him.”

Schnall was part of 11 NCAA Regional teams in 12 seasons during his previous tenure on Gilmore’s coaching staff, including the Chants’ two NCAA Super Regional appearances in 2008 and 2010.

According to Coastal Carolina’s news release, Schnall was listed among the top 10 assistant coaches nationally in a Baseball America poll of Division I head coaches in December 2012, leading into his first season away from the Chants.

He served as hitting instructor and recruiting coordinator during his three years at Central Florida, helping the Golden Knights rank sixth nationally last season with 66 home runs and lead the American Athletic Conference with a .294 team batting average.

“It was a great experience being away. I wanted to be challenged differently, I wanted to expand my horizons and I did do that,” Schnall said. “I’m coming back with a greater perspective. I feel more prepared to be a better coach than I was three years ago.”

When he visited campus last month to meet with Gilmore and Hogue about making a return to Conway, Schnall got his first look at the Chants’ new Springs Brooks Stadium, trying not to be noticed while walking out to the new boardwalk that stretches around the back of the outfield wall.

He had seen photos of the place, but taking it in firsthand only made the thought of returning seem even more right.

“I’ll be honest with you, I was overwhelmed. The pictures don’t do this place justice and I hadn’t been back in three years,” he said. “When I saw everything, the only [way I can describe it] is I was overwhelmed. … It really made me reflect back on some great memories.

“The other thing that was kind of overwhelming, when I drove around campus I felt I was gone for 10 years. I was always only gone for three years. It’s a really exciting time to be back and I can’t stress it enough, the whole family is so happy to be back. We left behind some great relationships.”

In returning, Schnall will again serve as the Chants’ recruiting coordinator, resuming a position he held for his last seven years with the program, while also working with the team’s catchers and serving as a hitting instructor.

The Chants are coming off a strong season in which they finished 39-21 and returned to the NCAA Regionals after a one-year absence. All of the key contributors on that team, aside from senior pitcher Austin Kerr and junior catcher Casey Schroeder, are expected to return next season while the roster gets further bolstered by the incoming recruiting class.

In looking forward, meanwhile, Gilmore said future recruiting was another significant motivator in bringing Schnall back at this time.

“Recruiting is so difficult as it is. Kids are committing three and four years out,” he said. “I’ve been one of the last guys to succumb to that whole mess. It’s just something that I felt like needed to be done to show continuity in the program. People were already telling kids we were recruiting, ‘Make sure Coach Gilmore is going to be there. You never know if they have a change in coaches one day whether you’ll be part of the program or not.’”

As he said, Schnall’s return provides an answer to any such questions concerning the future.

But both men emphasized the focus is still very much on the present.

“That was a major part of me returning, but the truth is right now I’m here to assist Coach Gilmore in every facet of this program, to make this program be as successful as it possibly can,” Schnall said. “That’s what my focus is on right now, but kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel was a major point of emphasis in this decision, not only for me but for the family.”

And while Gilmore acknowledges the end is indeed in sight for him with this move further underscoring that reality, he reiterated that only drives him more to finish what he started and get the Chants to their first College World Series before he steps aside.

The goal hasn’t changed.

“That’ll be all she wrote,” he said of his finishing out his contract in 2020. “So I’ve got to get this Omaha thing done in the next five years.”

This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 7:41 PM with the headline "Gilmore says Schnall’s return provides continuity for future of CCU baseball program."