Chanticleers’ College World Series run impacts entire university, leaders say

Before his Coastal Carolina baseball team left town to head to its first ever College World Series, coach Gary Gilmore was experiencing a heightened sense of celebrity back home.

Aside from the more than 700 text messages he said he had received as of Wednesday, he found that he couldn’t even run his daily errands without being recognized and engaged in conversation about the Chanticleers all of a sudden.

“It’s hilarious,” he said Wednesday. “I went to the drugstore yesterday, to CVS, and the three pharmacists people, I don’t know that they knew me from Adam’s house cat for the last couple years. Well, [this time it was], ‘Coach! Awesome. I couldn’t go to sleep!’ I get in my car and the phone is blowing up so I’m looking at my phone, and like two other people park on each side of my car and I mean I’m in my car and I guess they look in and see me and start banging on my window [saying] ‘I couldn’t go to sleep the other night. I had to watch it.’ [Random] people. I’ve gone through like three drive-throughs –‘Go Coastal baseball!’

“You’re just sitting there going, ‘Holy Cow, this is insane.’ The UPS guy stops yesterday to bring me something and he said, ‘We’ve never met and I just want to say I’m a fan forever.’ And I’m sitting there going, ‘Holy cow.’”

Gilmore has spent 21 years trying to get his alma mater to this point, square in the spotlight on college baseball’s grandest stage, but even for all the nights he’s admittedly stayed up thinking about it, dreaming of putting Coastal Carolina in the College World Series, he didn’t necessarily expect everything that’s come with it.

That only makes this all the more special, though.

“This is great. It’s what it ought to be,” Gilmore said. “You get a group of kids here to this point, and just like other things we’ve done here at this school, it’s a huge moment for baseball, but honestly I think it’s a bigger moment for our university, to be honest with you.”

Campus leaders agree.

The baseball program’s run to its first College World Series as something of an underdog story – despite being a nearly perennial postseason player and having come close before – has brought invaluable attention to the ever growing university, they say.

As Coastal Carolina athletic director Matt Hogue put it, “It’s probably immeasurable in terms of the impact.”

“This is probably one of the finest moments in Coastal Carolina University athletics, and any time you get this kind of national attention, what it’s done is brought more and more alumni back into the fold,” university president David DeCenzo said. “We’ve heard from so many people who have expressed how proud they are of their alma mater, and I think that is something you can’t put a price tag on.

“This is something that as we continue to transform this university, this is another piece that really puts the name Coastal Carolina University out into the general public. My hope is as they hear about us, as they see about the things that are going on, they have a chance to explore not only what is happening athletically but the academics that exist at this institution. All of this media coverage is an opportunity to really draw people to the website and learn about what is our base business and that is the academics.”

DeCenzo, Hogue and other university leaders have long shared the belief that success in athletics on the national level offers an incomparable opportunity for the university to showcase and sell itself.

And there have been ample such opportunities in recent years with the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball program reaching back-to-back NCAA tournaments in 2014 and 2015 – the first for the program in 21 years – and the football program earning No. 1 national rankings at the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision during the last two seasons while becoming a national contender.

The Chants also had former football players Mike Tolbert and Josh Norman representing the school in the country’s biggest sporting event of all in February, as key cogs for the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl.

But only Coastal Carolina’s men’s golf program – with a fifth-place national finish in 2007 – has been this close to a national championship at the top level of its sport, albeit with far less fanfare.

So is it fair to call this College World Series run the biggest athletic achievement in school history?

“Yeah, I think so, given the fact that you’re now on the championship stage,” Hogue said. “This equates to being in the Final Four, this equates to being in the college football national championship game, this is the final stage. And that’s what all our programs are striving to reach. When you get to this level, everything changes – the amount of eyeballs that will be watching, the amount of coverage, the way that just the city of Omaha and that community embraces this sport. They treat this as big as Miami or New Orleans might treat a Super Bowl.

“So because of that, yeah, this is clearly athletically the greatest achievement that our institution has had. And I [will] probably say this until people get tired of hearing it, this again will be another example of how a vibrant athletic program can provide the portal for people to learn about all the amazing things that are happening at this university.”

Gilmore said he had heard from around 100 former players who said they were planning to be in Omaha for the game, and as of Thursday evening Coastal Carolina had sold more than 600 of its 700-ticket allotment for the event.

When the Chants open College World Series play at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on ESPN 2 against top-seeded Florida, they’ll not only be playing before a frenzied crowd inside 24,000-seat TD Ameritrade Park but also a national television audience.

There’s no telling how many eyes back along the Grand Strand will be following along as well.

No doubt Gilmore’s pharmacists, UPS delivery man and all the other fans he and his team have inspired along the way to this point.

And that response is something he hopes – and believes – will impact the school well beyond whenever this incredible run comes to an end.

“As important as it has been to our baseball program, I honestly think it’s bigger to our school,” Gilmore reiterated during a news conference of College World Series head coaches Friday in Omaha. “Being a 10,000-student university, to see your name being called out and all the people who have reached out to us and our fan base, I honestly think it has a chance – and I know this may sound crazy – but we may double our fan base at our university because of this experience.

“At every mid-major university, there has to be stepping stones to being something bigger than a mid-major and [along with] going into the Sun Belt next year and starting 1-A football, this is a huge, huge stepping stone for our school.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2016 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Chanticleers’ College World Series run impacts entire university, leaders say."