Coastal great Gary Gilmore: Happy for Kevin Schnall, sympathetic to Chants’ future
As rumors bubbled to confirmed reports in recent weeks that South Carolina was targeting Coastal Carolina’s Kevin Schnall to take over its baseball program, anyone wishing to imagine Schnall staying at Coastal kept coming back to one thing: loyalty.
This is a man who has spent a majority of his time on Earth as a Chanticleer: Two years as a player (1998-99), 21 seasons as an assistant (2001-12; 2016-24) and two seasons as the head coach (2025-26). This is someone who saw the rewards of loyalty every day while playing and coaching under Gary Gilmore, who spurned bigger jobs en route to taking the Chants to the mountaintop.
And yet, Schnall took the South Carolina job.
“I think for me personally — I mean, I’m happy for Kevin,” Gilmore said. “If that’s what Kevin wants to do, I get it. Like I’ve said in other interviews, it’s an amazing fan base (at USC). It’s an amazing tradition they have there and you’re playing in the best league in the country.
“I get it,” Gilmore continued. “That’s kind of the epitome of where you want to end up in life as a college coach.”
The hire became official on Wednesday afternoon as Schnall’s five-year contract worth at least $1.3 million annually — more than double what Schnall was set to earn at Coastal — was approved.
But that was a mere formality. Reports of Schnall’s hiring surfaced on Tuesday morning and, within 12 hours, five of Coastal Carolina’s best players from 2025 all entered the transfer portal and immediately committed to South Carolina.
And that’s where this gets complicated. Because while Gilmore is happy for Schnall’s career ascension, “some of the other stuff,” he said, “the portal stuff and taking the players when you go — all that stuff I have very mixed feelings over.”
Gilmore spent 29 seasons as the head coach of Coastal Carolina, build the Chanticleers into the envy and dream of every non-blue-blood in America. He won over 1,000 games with the Chants, reached the NCAA Tournament 19 times, advanced to the super regionals three times and, of course, led Coastal to the 2016 national title.
Twice, Gilmore said, he had the opportunity to leave Coastal for an SEC head coaching job. He turned them both down. Granted, the last offer came in 2011, well before being a head baseball coach in the Southeastern Conference meant a seven-figure salary.
But, darn it, he still said no. He stayed at Coastal — and when it was time to retire, the succession plan was a seamless handoff to Schnall.
There was no clear transition of power this time. Schnall left and took some of Coastal’s best players with him before the Chants could name a replacement.
“ “At the end of the day,” Gilmore said, “we should have been way more proactive in trying to have a successor in place or do something with NIL money or whatever to keep the kids intact for a little while.
“It is part of what’s going on, but we were caught with our head in the sand.”
Gilmore admitted that he wasn’t aware of how aggressive an offer Coastal Carolina made to keep Schnall, but noted that it never got to a point where anyone told him to call Schnall and have a “heart-to-heart” about which way to go.
And Gilmore didn’t feel his input needed to be any part of Schnall’s decision-making process.
“He’s a big boy and can figure out, you know, whether or not that’s the life (for him),” Gilmore said. “With all the money, with all the resources — all of it's wonderful, but (there’s a) tremendous amount of scrutiny and tremendous amount of stress involved.”
In any case, Coastal Carolina Athletic Director Chance Miller — who knew this outcome was a possibility — didn’t wait long to name a new baseball coach.
Coastal on Thursday announced former Mississippi State skipper Chris Lemonis as the Chanticleers’ new leader.
Naturally, Gilmore was championing Coastal associate head coach Chad Oxendine, who played under him from 2001-04, to be CCU’s next head coach.
“I’m hoping that Coach Oxendine gets a chance to be the guy,” he said before Coastal had named Lemonis as landing the job. “(I hope we) stay with Coastal people that have been part of what’s going on here for a long time, and that we don’t go out and try to do the same thing to somebody else.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2026 at 7:15 AM with the headline "Coastal great Gary Gilmore: Happy for Kevin Schnall, sympathetic to Chants’ future."
