BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
The Ultimate Baseball Coaching Podcast. Step inside the dugout with Baseball Coaches Unplugged, the must-listen podcast for players, coaches, and parents who want to unlock the secrets of baseball greatness. Hosted by Ken Carpenter, a 27-year coaching veteran, this show delivers exclusive insights from top athletes and coaches, revealing what separates champions from the rest.
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BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
4 Moments That Defined the Greatest CWS Upset Ever - Gary Gilmore
When Gary Gilmore arrived at Coastal Carolina, they had won just 17 games the previous season. Nobody—except perhaps Gilmore himself—believed this program could ever reach college baseball's pinnacle. Yet through a remarkable development-focused philosophy, unwavering faith, and a culture built on love, Gilmore guided the Chanticleers to one of the greatest underdog stories in sports history.
The 2016 College World Series champions weren't built on blue-chip recruits or lavish facilities. Coastal thrived by taking overlooked athletes, redshirting them to build their skills, and molding them into complete baseball players. "We had to take guys that simply nobody ever heard of," Gilmore reveals, explaining how he prioritized athleticism over polish in recruiting. This development approach, coupled with the program's "selfless and relentless" mantra, created a team greater than the sum of its parts.
What makes this championship story even more extraordinary are the specific predictions Gilmore shared with his team before the final series. In an emotional team meeting, he outlined exactly how they would win—which pitchers would throw how many innings and the precise situations they would face. His players watched in amazement as these predictions unfolded exactly as described. "Coach, you told us what was going to happen before it happened. How did you do that?" they would later ask him.
Behind this magical run was Gilmore's transformation as a leader. After nearly leaving coaching early in his career due to frustration, he discovered his true purpose through faith and relationships. "The most important thing God put me on this earth for was to develop relationships," he shares. This revelation led him to create a culture where love became the team's greatest strength—where players constantly picked each other up after failures and supported one another unconditionally.
Whether you're a coach seeking to build a championship program or simply love underdog stories, Gilmore's journey offers powerful lessons about development, culture, and the extraordinary things that happen when a team truly believes.
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Today, on Baseball Coaches Unplugged, I examine what it took for Coastal Carolina to win the 2016 College World Series in Omaha with recently retired head coach Gary Gilmore. It required fighting athletes that baseball blue bloods overlooked a strategy for developing players and a culture built on belief and love. You'll want to hear the incredible story how Coach Gilmore laid out exactly what was going to happen in the final games of the College World Series Tutor's Players A true David versus Goliath story. Next, on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by AthleteOne. Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches With 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills. We're covering it all. Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field. Discover how to build a winning mentality. Inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus, get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success. Join Coach every week as he breaks down the game and shares incredible behind-the-scenes stories. Your competitive edge starts here, so check out the show weekly and hear from the best coaches in the game. On Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, coach Ken Carpenter. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and look for a new episode. Every Wednesday, coastal Carolina head coach Gary Gilmore takes us behind the scenes, from the clubhouse to the dugout and even onto the field, and he shares what made 2016 such a magical season for the Chanticleers. What made 2016 such a magical season for the Chanticleers? I'm your host, coach Ken Carpenter, and joining me today is Gary Gilmore, retired head coach and College World Series champion at Coastal Carolina Coach. Thanks for taking time to be on Baseball Coaches.
Speaker 3:Unplugged. Ken, I appreciate it and look forward to our conversation, and I hope it's something that's worthy for people to listen to and get some knowledge from. Hopefully it'll make their life and day better.
Speaker 1:Well, without a doubt, there's no doubt that that's going to happen. Since I got you on the show, I've been really excited, you know, once I found out I was able to get you on the show, and you know I always like to figure out. You know, what can I start off with? And I'm always curious about what do coaches do when they're not coaching? And you know, since retirement, what's your passion now?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'll be honest with you, I't like like truly latched on to any one thing or whatever. Uh, you know, like being outdoors a lot and uh, you know, one of the one of the things that I mean, obviously my, some of my health challenges are out there. But you know, mainly too, I, I, I miss so much of my own son and daughter growing up and, uh, I've got four little grandsons and I said, you know, I, I don't, I, I, as much as I love college baseball and I, I mean, I'm, I'm, I miss it a lot, but I, I didn't want to go through life and not know my grandchildren. You know my wife's parents, my parents both loved our grandkids but they, you know, they were working and doing stuff. They never really got a chance to really know their own grandkids, not the way I know mine already, know mine already, you know I mean, so you know I, uh, you know I kind of I, you know, kind of, got uh, highly persuaded and uh, semi-volunteered to coach my, my 11? U grandsons, uh, little travel team. So you know, I've, I've, I've, I call it the dark side, I've gone over over. So you know, I swore I'd never do that, but you know it's amazing just to be out there and get to be around him. And you know, practice with him some and do things with him, just to spend time with him and be around the game of baseball. It makes that part fun for me.
Speaker 3:And you know we live a couple blocks from the beach. My wife's a big beach girl, so you know we spend time down there as well. And you know just pretty much anything outside that we can do. We do she does a ton of walking and when she can drag me out of the house she drags me out of the house and I go weather, because there are very few of those times during the coaching career. It's just hard to whittle out consistent opportunities to do a lot of things that normal families do.
Speaker 3:You make coaching seven days a week because I make you know coaching, coaching it's seven days a week because I mean you know you go oh man, I got Sunday off. We can do this and that you know. And it's their recruiting season. Sure, as tootin' one of the guys is going to run across somebody and go. You know, coach, I got him, he's going to come on campus on Sunday or whatever, and so you're the guy, you know, if you're not out on the road as well, you're the guy back at campus. So you know, instead of spending Sunday with your family, you spend it with someone else's family, and it's just. You know, it's just how it works. Married to the right woman and have the right kind of family mentality to you know, be able to cherish the little pieces we can chip out of the, the, the, the career piece, if you're a coach.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, reflecting on your career at Coastal, can you? Is there one single thing that was like? You thought this is the most important factor for building that championship program uh, you know, I mean I.
Speaker 3:I mean, when we started, uh, I had been very, I had been very fortunate when I, when I went to usca and out of pro ball, uh, coach warwick already had a very, a very good program. It was on the precipice of of being a championship caliber program. And you know the one thing, he, he hired me. He told me, he said, uh, so there's not a lot of money, you know, pay paid for you to go to graduate school. He said the one thing I wanted in return. He said you know our program, we have gotten right to the very top, but we can't figure out how to beat Coastal Carolina. And he said I need you to bring that here. And I told him, I said well, my answer to that will be the same thing as the answer you're asking me about Coastal Carolina. I said you have to be thick-skinned enough for us to develop a culture. That's a little different, because the culture, whatever you've done, is obviously good, but it's only gotten you to a certain point. We have to examine all the factors in the culture that you have, because the culture is going to win. You know, and I said that you know, to answer your question. You know it took longer than I thought to really create the culture because we did not have the athletes here. Regardless of culture you, you can have the greatest culture in the world but you know, if you don't have x amount of athletes to execute that culture both on the field and off the field, it doesn't matter what your culture is. You know, if everyone's throwing 85 and all your athletes in the field run 72 and a 60, we're just not going to win many games because everyone else is just better than us. You know we have to. You know it's a deal where you know recruiting and bringing in athletic people and development I mean the core part of a cultural coastal Carolina During the time that I was there and I can't imagine it ever changing with Kevin being there it's all about development, is it's? You know? I mean there are very few players that ever came in there that had a skill set that could, just in and of itself, just, you know, play at a certain level.
Speaker 3:To a guy named Roberto Hernandez Played 18 years in the major leagues, in the top 10 in saves in the history of college and the history of major league baseball. Pitched in three all-star games. He had never thrown a pitch in his life off the pitcher's mouth. He'd been a catcher. He threw, I think, three or four innings in the Valley League the summer before he came to us. And the good part about that part, hen, is that, unlike maybe anyone else I ever coached in my life, the fact that he had never pitched, he had been a catcher. He had the mentality of understanding how to pitch. Catcher, he had the mentality of understanding how to pitch but did not have the physical movements and mechanics and pitch repertoire to execute on the mound. Physically pitching, you know most guys are the other way around. You see their physical pitching attributes. But understanding how to pitch, what to do, how to make an adjustment if you're just a tick off that day, how to like, figure out how to, you know, right myself in the middle of chaos and things like that, you know. So you know that is an example of the part at Coastal that I feel like.
Speaker 3:You know I mean we, we had to do I I mean the year I walked in at coastal they had won 17 games the year before, all right, and you know, we just we just didn't have the ability you know we have. We had to go out and find some guys. You know, and you know the core group that kind of turned the program around was, you know, to a large degree, along with Coach Schnall who played on one of those teams, you know, it came down to redshirting several. We redshirted about six or seven freshmen one year, the very first year, and you know, or excuse me, the second year, because the first year I didn't get a chance to recruit, I just had to play with what we had, and so it was really our first recruiting class that we basically set most of them out and took another beating because putting them out there in games defeated the purpose. You know, it is in my mind. They weren't strong enough, they weren't skilled enough, they didn't have the things that they needed.
Speaker 3:But that group of guys bought into the culture, brought into the workout, all the things that became what coastal baseball stood for. That group bought into them and as freshmen, you know we, we ended up, uh, losing in the in the conference championship game to a liberty team that had several draft pick guys on it. They were, they had a bunch of 22, 23 year old, older guys on that team, big, physical, talented, well coached, and you know we took them. We took them to the second championship game I think it was 13 innings and we made an error that cost us the game and you know it's, you know. But from there moving forward, then you know we got a taste of what it took to be good and that group basically led us to.
Speaker 3:You know, two years later we won a regional Uh, we took Georgia to the second championship game and lost and and 11 innings to those guys. They went to Omaha and, uh, you know we should have won that game and they had a guy named Kepinger hit three home runs in one game against us. And you know, just Kepinger hit three home runs in one game against us. And you know just one of those deals where you know not sure what I would do today but I didn't walk him in the 10th inning with a chance to we're up by. We had flip-flop, we were the home team that game and so they were at the top of the 11th game we lost. You get a two-run jack with two outs and two strikes on them. He had a two-run homer. We had first base open.
Speaker 3:And I sit there and think about it now. Man, that goes against everything in baseball that you would ever do is the one tight run on the first base and you're like, oh man, I'm like this guy. There's no way this cat hits three home runs in one game, you know. And long ball, and he did, man. But uh, you know, I, I'm a huge, huge, huge faith-based person and I don't it wasn't God's right time for me, you know I.
Speaker 3:You know I would have never, I would have never can, I would have never been able to stay at Coastal Carolina. We'd have won that thing and you know, that would have been like holy cow, that's insane. And if somehow we'd have gone to Florida State and beaten them the way Georgia beat them and gone to the World Series, you know, I mean financially, man, I was making less than $40,000, you know, at the time, you know I would have had no choice but to leave. You know, and I honestly, I always said it because I always preached that, hey, coastal's going to go to Omaha, this is how we're going to do it, whatever, I'm pretty sure the one thing that I do know, that is 100% that during my tenure there, early in those early years, that I was the only human being on the face of this earth that thought Coastal Carolina could go to Omaha. You know, and so you know, there were a lot of bumps in the road.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I guess you know that ties into the recruiting side of things you know you had to get the right people in place. And what would you tell? You know high school coaches right now and their players about what it takes to be a D1 player. I imagine it's got to be. You got to have the right mindset and you got to be willing to grind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, mindset and you got to be willing to grind yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's. I think that's the saving grace of um, um, not not that coastal carolina will be called up in the nil and the portal and this and that, but I mean the culture that I left, the culture that coach sch Schnall is continuing to embrace. That culture is an us culture and as long as you have an us, all of us culture and can sell it where they all believe in it and all want to be a part of it, you can still compete against cultures that have way more nio money, uh, way more people moving in and out of their programs and they're just, they're just floating talent through for nine months. You're, you're, you know you're. You still can do what needs to be done to get to omaha. And once you get to om, anyone can run to Omaha because you get days off. You get to recycle guys. You get.
Speaker 3:You know you're not, for the most part you're not throwing. You know your mid-weight guy might not get an inning out there. You know it's three starters and your bullpen guys. You're running the majority of the time you're running. You know six, know six, seven, maybe max eight guys out there to get through the whole thing in omaha. You know so. You know it's it's not. I'm not saying it's easier to win out there, it's just way. I think winning the regional is far more difficult because you can play five games in three days or four days, excuse me, in four days, five games in four days. So recycling the bullpen guys and doing different, I mean it's a completely different strategy that has to take place to win those types of things compared to getting to Omaha.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, and I, uh, you know, I, I love what you said there and it's a shame that more of that's not uh, seen, I guess, and it's the way you're saying, you know the, the tweets and the stuff that's put out there and it's, it's all about me, you know, it seems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, you know I, you know it seems. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean I. I think the whole, the whole thing can it might you know during. You know college coach for 29 years and, believe or not, I think more has changed in the last 12 months and maybe, you know, in the last 15 or 20 years. With the portal, the NIL, the rule changes the numbers of coaches that you can have, the number of recruiters. I mean, you know I coached for 29 years where you know the only two people that could be out, you know were me and one other assistant, or the two assistants I mean you know you're out there beating the bushes all over the country and it's two of you. You know now they got like half a dozen, you know and and stuff.
Speaker 3:But you know, for players themselves, what used to be developmental, you you know I, I can look, I can look around at the programs that were huge developers of young pal. You know our hours was. I feel like ours was one of the very best. I mean we, we had to take guys that simply nobody, no, very few people, ever heard of. To be very honest with you, you know my formula position player-wise was we weren't athletes. If I was going to make an error on judgment of a player, it was going to be an error in judgment of them being an athlete versus a non-athlete. You know, I felt like we could take athletes and develop them into players. If a guy was a quick twitch guy, a guy that could run and could move, had movement skills and things like that, then we could develop that guy into a player. Obviously that wasn't a necessity Nine guys through the order. But I mean we had teams at times at Coastal where all nine guys could run. We led the country in stolen bases several times and all of that.
Speaker 3:But you know, that was a product of young players that were athletes that you made bigger and stronger, but virtually almost. I don't know the percentage. I'd guess 75% to 90% of those kids redshirted for a year. They were a lot of them were Northern kids. They didn't have limited I mean travel ball wasn't what it is today. I mean they had limited exposure. They also had limited game experience and they had. They had to first of all learn how to play the game but physically had to get to a point where their, their natural skillset could perform at a high level, consistently. And you know, obviously they would show you something in camp and workouts and showcases that you go to and things like that. They would show you something. But at the end of the day, you know, it sorely needed to be developed. There were very few, it was almost in our program. I mean.
Speaker 3:It got to a point where, you know, I mean you know, bringing a high school recruit in, that was a real player. You know they get around our players and they they would tell them like, hey, man, it's, it's tough to impossible to play here as a freshman. You know the guy, the things that you have to learn to actually be a player here is going to take you a while, unless you're just insanely skilled. And eventually, you know, we get a guy. We got a my kid in 2005 named Micah Stanza, first-round draft pick guy. Eventually, you know, he played as a freshman, pitched as a freshman, you know. And from there you know he kind of set the bar of uh okay, what's it take to to be a freshman to walk in here and play? And then we have this guy and that guy.
Speaker 3:You know, in the big south we went like I think three or four years in a row where our freshman was the player of the year in the league, but they were all red shirt freshmen. So they're really like sophomores, even though they'd not use the year eligibility, but they were just bigger and stronger and more skilled than everybody else's normal true freshmen, you know. So you know it was funny. They actually in the league meeting one year. They go. Well, we're tired of Coastal's redshirt freshman winning the league. We're going to change the role. You have to be a true freshman. And I started laughing. I said, okay, that's fair, I get it, but no, it was. I mean, that was a huge part of it. You know, and I mean a lot of that.
Speaker 3:With the pitching too, you know you, to try to play the teams we were trying to play. We wanted to play Clemson's in South Carolina's, north Carolina's, virginia. As time went on, when, when Oat got there, teams like that were the teams we want to play. But also we, you know, man, we we loaded up our schedule with kent state, who was unbelievably good back in those days. Delaware, man, they were on rock solid back in the day. They were really, really good. George mason, you know, I go on.
Speaker 3:You know our schedule was very difficult and you know, I felt like we needed to develop, to play the schedule, not to play the schedule. To develop. We had to be better. So we had to do some things to get better. We wanted to be able to play that type of schedule because, you know, the Big South at that time in the league was very top-heavy. Winthrop was outstanding when Coach Hudak was there all those years and you know we just had, you know, when Coach Hare was at Campbell there at the end of their time in the Big South, man, they were a handful as well.
Speaker 3:Irvingham Southern Coach Shoup, I mean it, it was, you know, at the top end of the league. You, you, you had to be a top 25, top 30 team to compete at the top end of that league. You know the bottom of the league was not nearly as good, you know, but so, but all of that and every, everything we did in the cultural piece was surrounded by development. First we had to recruit, but also we put a thing together. We had two Montferwards that we developed along the way of selfless and relentless.
Speaker 3:What that looked like on the field, what it looked like in the classroom, what that looked like on the field, what it looked like in the classroom, what it looked like at walmart, uh, what it looked like in all walks of life. How can you show your two mantra words and characteristics of the culture of coastal in every setting? And we spent a lot of time teaching kids how to do that. And, uh, you know, it was a day, it was different. You know, I got a, you know, and it was a product of the staff and the players and everyone else.
Speaker 3:It wasn't just me, but I got a ton of personal compliments from faculty and staff and people just you know, the yes, ma' sir, this, that, whatever they go, wow, man, your kids are the most courteous kids I've ever met, that their manners are so amazing.
Speaker 3:I said well, you know that starts at home first, you know. But you know, we, we want to be an extension of what, what we feel like true culture and belonging to, to a group means we want to be different, we want to be able to be in a crowd and no one pay attention to us, but also we want to be in a crowd where everybody goes. Well, I want to be like that, I want to act like that, I want to be like that, and I think too much of that in our world has gone away. To be very honest with you, we're not like that anymore. We hide behind a phone screen or a computer screen or whatever, with some fake name. We don't have the inner fortitude to stand up and go hey, man, it's me, I'm accountable, that was my mistake or that was this or that. Whatever I'm accountable, good or bad, it's it, that's all me.
Speaker 1:Well, you, you talked about it right there for me, and and it kind of leads into my next question you, you kept building and building and building. You know regionals, and then you finally win the World Series.
Speaker 3:What was that like and what made it so special? What makes it so special is people said we couldn't do it. You know what I mean. What makes it so special is people said we couldn't do it. You know what I mean. I mean there's still. I have it in my scrapbook, I have a picture of it.
Speaker 3:You know we're playing the number. We're opening up against the number one team in the country University of Florida. They have four first round. We only saw three, but we played them on that sunday night and we saw three of their first round pitchers all in one night. Alonzo was the first baseman on that team. There are a couple other big league position players I can't think of. They go off top my head, but they had a. They had a fourth first rounder who didn't pitch that day against us.
Speaker 3:You know ESPN gave us of the chance to win the World Series 3.7% chance of winning, all right. So we're sitting there and you know I mean for me. I'll be honest with you. I don't think I ever got nervous one second until the last pitch of the last game and we're sitting there like damn man. We're one pitch away from winning the World Series and there's dudes on second and third and there's a full count and there's two outs and I'm like holy moly, man, this is what's going on. Up until then I don't think I got nervous at all because it was like we're here, no one expects us to be here, and every single day, ken, that we stayed there, every single day, you could feel it, the players could feel it. Like Coach man, everybody's starting to pull for us, everybody in the country.
Speaker 3:When we got, every day we would go to batting practice or whatever. We had. Our team bus was all wrapped in teal and black and coastal stuff all over. Whatever all those team buses are. We'd pull down the street. You know game one, and we may have, as we left the hotel and weaved our way through to where we were going to take batting practice, we may have had a handful of real coastal fans that were our normal coastal fans stepped out of a bar or whatever, saw the bus and you know we're getting maybe 25 claps going down there. You know, about four games into when we get into the deal where we're in the last four. We have to beat TCU. We have to beat them twice to move on to the championship series. I'll never forget.
Speaker 3:It was a night game and we're pulling out for BP and it was like every stoplight we stopped at it was just 50, 75, 100 people. They come walking out of these buildings, see our bus coming, they start walking out. They're out on the corner of man shots up. They're clapping like crazy. By the time we got to the last game, I'm telling you, it was like a roadblock of people Every stoplight. It was unbelievable. I mean.
Speaker 3:They even made comments on TV that at the end of the day, if you weren't an Arizona fan, you're definitely a coastal fan. That there's a whole country against their arizona because they were all coastal people and it honestly, our players in our meetings would go coach. I feel like these people are picking us up. I feel like I'm walking on air. There's so many people pulling for us that I don't even know this and that I mean in our own state. I mean it's like you know, I don't mean this derogatorily or any way or whatever. I don't want somebody jumping on me over a race or whatever. But you know, I mean in some ways. You know, in the South you still have remnants of the Civil War, so to speak. You know, and in South Carolina. That's kind of how I always describe the South Carolina Clemson deal when they play one another. I mean you're on one side of the sand with the other.
Speaker 3:You know, and for that one series when we're playing Arizona, and especially the last day we're in the championship, do or die, take it all. Everybody took off the garnet and black. They took off the orange and the purple. Everybody in our state was teal and black. For one day there may that may never happen in history again. It was that big a deal, you know. Our governor broke hundreds of years of of of protocol at the state level and flew our coastal flag above the state flag. Had it never, ever happened before? Oh, yeah, oh, she called Helen out. She called Helen out. You know what I mean. She ain't even got a coastal connection, you know.
Speaker 3:But it was that big a deal for all of us. I mean it was an incredible surreal moment for you know. I mean you was an incredible surreal moment for, you know. I mean you think about it there hadn't been a mid-major win, win the thing, in like 70 years, you know, back to when you know they just weren't in the same even remotely the same landscape of the visual and baseball. It is now. You know. I mean you know that's back in the days when you know Army or navy or somebody like that could win the thing, because you know they could enlist the right group of guys and be the best team in the country or something. But you know, it's it.
Speaker 3:It was, um, I don't know honestly how to describe it um, it, it. It was so special to me. My father passed away three years before we got there and he was so instrumental in my life and my faith had just taken this exponential step forward and it played itself out during all this series like just taking this exponential step forward and it played itself out during all this series and I honestly think that you know that. I honestly think it had a part of it. To be honest with you, I really do. I mean the things that happen, ken. I mean you know the things that happen, ken. We could talk for we could have this conversation for the next several hours, but I'll tell you two things that happened and I'll try to make them as quick as possible, that's all right.
Speaker 3:We're at LSU and we hadn't spanked them. The first game and then game two. We're up two to one, going into the top of the night and you know we had flip-flop home. You know the way they, the ncaa, does it. We were the home team and uh, my second baseman, uh lancaster, uh busted his knee up. I tried to squeeze in a run in the in the bottom half of the eighth to give us a two run late, and and when he dove in the home plate, somehow he and the catcher got tangled and he did. I forget what they called it, uh, maybe all meniscus or something. He did something to his knee. He's out for the rest of the year.
Speaker 3:So I put a freshman in who had played some early in the year because Seth had been hurt, and so I had played this young man. But once Seth got well, the other young man he got scrapped at bat here and there for 40-some games. He hadn't been in a game really. So I put him at second base and we go out there and you can only imagine what's happening. We're three outs away from Omaha, the pinnacle of what we're trying to achieve.
Speaker 3:First pitch three, hop. I'm telling you it was a fungo. I could not fungo a ball in rhythm more easy to catch than that ball. What smack dab to him? It might as well hit a teflon skillet. You know it, it was. It hit his glove. It bounced down here, sat right at his feet. He went to grab it. He bobbled it, dropped it, picked it up, threw it wide at first base. Guy gets off.
Speaker 3:Well, you can imagine losing man. They had 18,000 people in that joint. All right, I'm telling you, our dugout, the concrete dugout, was vibrating. It was like that much stuff, you know, and so you know we, we had, we had done an amazing job of keeping our focus and cool and in keeping all that stuff away from us. You know we. You know we watched For Love of the Game a couple of times away from us. You know we. You know we, we watched for love of the game a couple of times and you know at least the, the excerpts of kevin costner and, like you know, uh, control the mechanism, you know, and make all that other stuff out there, all those people screaming at you and hollering at it, make it go away. We're just playing the game.
Speaker 3:Lo and behold my pitcher. Four pitches later there's a wall. So it's first and second. Now, I mean you know they have one. They have the fastest guy in college baseball coming up. What's he do? He lays down a 25 foot bump. It's about three inches from the foul line.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, I had a guy that played in the big leagues at third base and Remillard made a hell of a play and I mean we knew he was bonding, we still couldn't get him. And so the kid that made the original error, he made a play at first base and I'll be honest with you, this ball comes up into him and forces him into the running lane. This guy just absolutely bulldozes him, I'm telling you. I mean he comes up up, he's got blood everywhere, whatever, but he kept the ball in front. Ball gets by.
Speaker 3:They scored multiple runs. They scored one run and ended up with guys at second and third. Well, the next thing we do what happens? Ground ball to the pitcher. They don't run. My pitcher don't check third base. He catches it actually throw a grenade to first base. I mean that third could have walked on. He gonna walk. Well, then we, then we go then, then then we get a walk. So bases are loaded, now one out and my pitcher goes three and one on a pitch hitter. My pitcher's right-handed, left-handed pinch hitter, real good fastball hitter.
Speaker 3:My pitching coach looks at me. He says coach thomas. Says he says gilly, you, okay, I thought a little slider here. I said huh. I said we just we've walked two guys already and it's three and one where we're getting ready to walk in the tying run. He said this guy, if we throw a fastball here, this guy's going to crush it. I said all right, man. I said I told him. I said God brought us this far. I said he throws a slider and a guy swung out of his rear end and he missed it. And then he climbs the ladder with a 92-mile-an-hour fastball four-seamer and the guy who's looking for the slider again threw it right by him. I mean completely full, punched him out. Next pitch, fly ball to left field and then the fun begins Tie game.
Speaker 3:We come in bottom of the night. I got the leadoff guy up and then my third round draft pick shortstop piet. So they come in, I grab. I told my pitching coach. I said get those two guys over here to me right now. Just grab them, I'll meet them in the on deck circle. So I got my anthony marks. Who's our fiery little left-handed hitting left fielder he's. He's putting on all his junk.
Speaker 3:I turned my hat around. I got this close to his face, I. I said you see this, ray, you look in these two things right here. I said you do not do anything, but focus on my eyes and hear my word. I said Anthony.
Speaker 3:I said I know 1000% how this is going to play out. I said you're going to get the first base. The only thing I don't know is how you're going to do it. I don't know if you're going to get a hit, a wall hit by pitch error. I have no idea. I said, but look in my eyes. I said can you see yourself in the first base? And he's like yes, coach, yeah, coach, I'll do it, I'll do it.
Speaker 3:I said you go up there and have the best at-bat you've ever had. And I said when you get to first? I said we're going to do something we haven't done all year. Okay, I said in this situation we've almost always bunted. We're leading the country in sacrifice bunts and home runs with that team. We have the best home run inning team. But we also sacrificed, bunting more than anybody else. I said we're going to do something different. I want you to get the best lead you've ever gotten. You've been in this program five years, son, and we've talked about face stealing, face stealing, face stealing. You've never been my best face stealer, but you will be be today because you're going to get the best lead you can. You're going to give me the best steal break you've ever given me and you're going to get to second and be safe. And he's like, yeah, I'm ready to go. So he starts heading up to the plate. Paez Paez is a shortstop, he's hitting, hitting second, and he's not a very good runner.
Speaker 3:It didn't play into my thought process because I had been praying. Man, I've been praying the whole game. I mean, I sat there the whole game playing god, whatever your will is, whatever, just don't let me screw this up. God, don't let me mess it. I don't want to say something or do something that's not coming from you. So you put the words in my mouth, you put them in there, and so, as soon as Mark walked away from me, fias looked at me and goes Coach, I got it, he goes. I know he goes. I know I haven't been a great butler, but I will get you a great butler, mikey. That's not what I need today. I said that's not what we're doing today. I said when Anthony gets to second, I'm not going to butt him to third. I said I know we probably should, but I tell you what you know, what You're our best player and I believe in you. And I said you look in my eyes, see the belief, you see it in my eyes. I said it's coming from a higher power than me. I said you see it, you find the pitch you like. You put your swing on it. I guarantee it. They send us to Omaha. I went to the third base coach's box and called for nobody else.
Speaker 3:Anthony Marks called off five just absolute bastard sliders from their reliever after he got him 0-2. He kept fighting pitches off. He ends up having a nine pitch at bat and walks. He goes to first base, takes a good aggressive lead. He has a 3.19 steal break time. All right. To put that in perspective, that's in the top 1% of Major League Baseball steal break time. All right, I mean that's the elite of the elite. That's insane. All right. So he gets the second. And anybody that ever watched us play that series, I mean that game, especially this determination in his face when he gets the second. He looks at his teammates and he's just pounding his chest looking at those guys.
Speaker 3:The very next pitch they had moved the third baseman in up on the grass. Mike Piazza's in a 0-1 count at the plate and a guy throws him a slider Pitch. He pitched it all off so he don don't hear very good, so I don't know why the heck. He even swung it, the damn thing. But he did it and it was one of these top spun bouncers.
Speaker 3:To third one hop, two hops. On the second hop it had so much top spin it went a little, little big. It went over the kid at third. It missed his glove that much and he goes down and over the left field line and marks he had to hang hold up for a second, thinking he might catch the ball. He couldn couldn't just break and go. So you know he comes around in third and I mean they're getting left out of really good arm. I mean he air-mailed it all the way to the plate and I'm telling you if it would have been low I'm not sure we're probably out. But it was like head high and he had to apply the tag and we beat it and got in underneath it, and you know we go to Omaha, but I'm telling you the amount of praying I did in during that game. I was way more worried about doing something that took away from my kids having a chance to win than anything else. That was the one thing I didn't like.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, if I do all the right moves and we lose, I'm good with it, I can handle it, not asking you to make the decision. Just continue, god. Just continue to be in my head, continue to give me great confidence in my abilities. That you've given me and the things that you've done, that you're at the end of the day, the things I sing and do with these guys, that it is the will, that it's what you want them to do, and if they don't perform and win, then we just don't perform and win. But we do the things that we should do. Well, we get to Omaha and we get. I mean, this goes on to a lesser degree in basically every game. I mean I'm constantly. Anybody that would do a documentary on us and go back through all the footage of our games, they would see me on the top step on the rail and my hands would be like this and if you watched me at third base, outside of giving signs, the majority of time I would be there instead of here or here or whatever. You'd see this and the whole constant time I'm going. God, your will be done. We lost some of those games, so it wasn't like, okay, well, if I do this, we win. It wasn't how it worked. Well, we lost Arizona game one and our pitching because we had gotten in the loser's bracket. We had played Thursday, the losers bracket. We had played thursday, friday, saturday at sunday off. Now we had to play monday, tuesday, wednesday. We had to play six games in seven days. That's that's hell. That's hell for anybody. Yeah, uh. So I never forget.
Speaker 3:Coming out of the press conference, we, uh, you know, walk through the locker room or through the locker room in, uh, you know, the players locker room was on the left, the coaches one was on the right. Well, everyone was in the main locker room. So I had all my stuff. So I went into my office. I told him as a law boss guys give me five, I'll be back here in five minutes. I went in that locker room that was the head coach's locker room. I locked the door behind me, threw my bag up in the locker and got down on my knees and put my elbows on my locker lid and I just pray, I just go God, what do I say? Walking by that, there was devastation in that room. It was completely devastating.
Speaker 3:I said God, you've got to help me, have a plan. We're down in pitching, we don't have many moves I can make. I know some moves that I can make. I don't think physically are going to give us a chance to win. So I need to hear your voice, I need you to help me with the plane.
Speaker 3:Well, I walked back in there and nothing. I walked back in there and nothing. Initially there was nothing. So I just started talking and then, all of a sudden, this first idea pops into my brain and I said guys, let's stop for a moment.
Speaker 3:I think this is more important. I said we came here as a group, the whole entire group of people, on a mission, and I've told you a million times the power of our 27. All believing together, all working together, all loving each other together, all believing together, all working together, all loving each other together, is more powerful than a team that's more talented that doesn't have that. I said we proved it. These last 21 games were 19-2. I said and a lot of these teams have more talent than us, in certain spots, for sure. So I said this is what I want you to do. So five minutes I want you right now.
Speaker 3:I said we were kind of in a square. I said reach to the guy on the left of you and right of you, grab his hand. I said we've the guy on the left of you and right of you, grab his hand. I said we've been doing this all week. I said let's spend five minutes. Look at each one of your brothers left of you, right of you, across the way from you. You lock eyes with them for a minute and you see the love and caring that's in each one of us, that they're your brother regardless of what happens moving forward. They are your brother for the rest of your life and if we're going to go down, somebody's going to have to take down the power that exists in this world.
Speaker 3:And so they did that for like five minutes and, to be very honest with you, I'm sitting there going like okay, god, well, we still have a plan. Guys, there's still a way. Well, at the end of five minutes is really I mean I mean even even my assistant guys that were there, I mean coach shillway tells us really I get goosebumps every time. I ever think of this he goes you told us that day in that locker room how we were going to win the World Series and he said damn near to the pitch Because I told him. I said, guys, I've got a plan. And I said this plan was not just me. I said I'll be honest with you, I've got a plan. And I said this plan was not just me. I said I'll be honest with you, I cheated. I'm asking for a whole lot of help from above. And I said this is the plan that I feel like is the plan that I'd be in urge to use. So hear me out.
Speaker 3:And I said Mike Morrison, our first team All-American I think he was a seventh or eighth round draft pick guy. Whatever, mike Morrison has been a reliever all year. He's relieved one inning. He's relieved five innings. I said you know what, mike, if we're going to lose tomorrow, I want to lose with you on the pitcher's mound Because I feel like you're our best guy Outside of Beckwith. You're our best guy.
Speaker 3:I took a ball over and I handed it to him. I said, mike, I challenge you as a best guy. I took a ball over and I handed it to him. I said, mike, I challenge you as a man. I said this is what all of the rest of us in this room need. We need you to go six complete innings and don't hand us that damn ball back until you reach pitch 100. And I said, when you do give us the ball back, there's going to be guys on base. And I said, when you do give us the ball back, there's going to be guys on base. And I said Bobby Holmes, you're our best guy bullpen-wise in the whole country. You've only let one inherited runner score all year. They're handing you the ball some. You're finishing the game. I said I love the rest of you pitchers, I love you all, but I can tell you right now you're not pitching. Tomorrow. These two guys are going to win the game tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Andrew Beckwith, you're going to throw the championship game. You have thrown two complete games in the College World Series. You are the best player in the whole country. Right man Dude's 15 and 1. One point, something ERA, that's it. But you know what I'm asking you to throw on two days short rest. You pitched last time and threw 140 pitches on one day short rest. He was a subby guy. So you know that's a whole different story. You know I've only got 140 pitches in my life.
Speaker 3:But we about got in a fight in the dugout on national TV because I wanted to take him out and he kept telling me that that Friday game against TCU he goes. We'd probably gotten a fight in the dugout on national TV because I wanted to take him out. And he kept telling me that Friday game against TCU he goes. I'm like a girl softball pitcher. I throw down here. I can throw every day down here. And he told me seventh inning, eighth inning and ninth inning.
Speaker 3:He told me in that game, ken, he said, coach, you call a fastball First pitch. If it's not above 90 miles an hour from up top, then you come get me, take me out. I'm done. Hell, he only threw 90-91 to begin with and he's all these pitches into the game. You're like shit, you can't do it. Yeah, he did Three innings in a row. Yeah, 91, 91, 90 and 90, three innings in a row, first pitch inning to get to this point.
Speaker 3:Well, so I told that. I said we called it that. I said that when you pitch with all this, all these innings, I said you're not going to get another complete game. I said, much as I love you, you're not going to get another complete game. I said, much as I love you, you're not going to get a CG again. I said I need you to get us into the sixth inning. And I said, when you do, there are going to be guys all over the bases and there's going to be chaos. And I said, bobby Holmes, you will have just thrown between two and three innings the day before to finish up behind Mikey. I said, son, I need you. Whatever it is, it's one out, two outs, three out, whatever it is that that can't get done. I need you somehow to be that guy.
Speaker 3:Alex Cunningham, our number two starter. He was a top 10 round draft pick guy. I said AC. I said you know what? I said you've had a whole career here and never thrown out of the bullpen one time. And I said you also have the distinction of being a guy that pitched as a starter in high school in three straight state championship high school games and you lost all three of them. This is your opportunity to throw the last pitch in the college world series and win the national championship, and you're going to do it.
Speaker 3:Game one Mike Morrison threw 106 pitches. He's ahead one run. He's got guys on second and third. Oh no. First and second and two outs. He's got guys on second and third. Oh no, first and second and two outs. Bobby Holmes comes in, gets him out of that and he pitches two more innings. So he went two and a third. The next day Beckwith got us into the sixth inning. Bases are loaded with two outs and Holmes comes in. Guy hits a line drive rocket at our first baseman. He snatches it out of the air. Get out of that and Cunningham, who never, ever, finished one of these games in his life, goes three innings, strikes the last guy out. A 4-3 game with men on second and third and a full count. He punches the guy out and we win.
Speaker 3:He told them too that it's like I mean you know you can't make that stuff up. You know what I mean. It's you know I mean both Piaz and Marks. Every time we're ever together we'll look at each other and you know both of those kids are fairly emotional and they will both. Every single time we talk about it, they'll both start crying.
Speaker 3:Coach, you told us what we were going to do. You told us what was going to happen before. How did you do that? I said, well, I don't think it was me, so I'm just being with you. I said.
Speaker 3:I said I was so much into the faith piece that I had such confidence in whatever was coming into my brain that that it was coming from the guy that I wanted to give all the glory to. I said, because it goes bad, that that's all I ever kept telling them. You know, listen, I will not take one grain of sand of credit for doing this. This is all you. So just whatever comes of this, myself and our players, you as our Lord will be the one hoisted up on the platform, not us. I said that is what this is all about. I mean the kids bought into it. That is what this is all about. I mean the kids bought into it and I mean it was so many things came into that whole group, ken.
Speaker 3:I mean we started I think we maybe had four or five guys that were believers. By the time we got done, we probably had three-fourths of the team were guys that were believers and I mean it was just another way for them to bond. You know to be very honest with you. It was. It was an unbelievable experience and and to experience it the way that we did, you know I mean you know honestly is you know it was a sports version of a David and Goliath type deal you know to be very awesome. I mean Arizona, what's their, what's their program? Very awesome. We had, no, you know, I mean arizona, what, what's their, what's their program one like six or seven national championships in baseball. And you know, you know, just, you know, florida's got, you know, all those first round draft picks. Tcu's got all these guys, texas, texas.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, worse than them, you know, and and yet we just kept playing the way we've been playing. We just made it very hard for you to beat us because we, you know, we were first in the country in home runs, first in sacrifices, we were, I think, third or fourth in defensive fielding and our era was one of the best ones in the country. Stolen bases, we, you know, I think we were like seventh or eighth in the country and solid basis. So you know, when you played us, you know you, you, we, we were a handful man, you know, I mean you know it's. You know, okay, we play a two to one game. You, you, you better be able to do all the other facets of the game. You know you worry about keeping the ball in the park. I mean we, we got six guys with you know you know 17 plus stolen bases.
Speaker 3:We got this. We can beat you with that. You know we're very proficient that at not only getting bunts down but placing them where they're very difficult to defend. You know it's one thing to get a bunt down, it's another to put it two, three feet away from the foul line and go okay, hey man, let me see if that pitcher can get off that pitcher's mound because he ain't fielded one button travel ball this whole entire career. Let's see if he can make that play Stuff like that.
Speaker 3:But it was, you know. I know it's been probably a 20-minute long-winded answer to your question, but it has been that, you know, for that group of kids. You know the team this past year unbelievably talented, had fantastic pitching and played great defense and had enough offense to win a national championship. It was different. There never can be another first and there can never be another team that did it the way we did. You know it really was. I mean, you know I so enjoyed watching them play this year.
Speaker 3:So many of the facets and culture of what had been Coastal Carolina for so long whatever you know was right back at the forefront. They did so many things. It's just the things on the side that happened with me and my expressing these things with our players. I mean, I don't know how you ever surely not something you can practice you know it. Just you know it never happened in my lifetime ever before and never happened afterwards in that type manner ever again either. It was just like we were just locked in this spiritual work that I feel like led us to where we got to. I really did, really did. I truly feel like I will. I'll go to my grave wholeheartedly believing that that was some form of divine connection going on there, that that maybe all it was just helped me be the best coach I could be. I I don't know, I have no idea what it was, but I'm telling you what you know.
Speaker 3:You look around and, as a coach and just like what you're doing in your podcast about touching lives and making a difference in life, that group of people saw a side of me. They saw a side of their teammates. They saw a side of a group of people believing in something and believing in each other and loving each other. So many of the biblical things that the bible is about is we're a part of our team. And they saw that and experienced it and for all of them that they, they all, you know we ever get together, they, man because you have no idea how that impacted my life. You know just. You know, obviously, the winning and all that was. It is and still is what it was. When I sit back and think about what we all did together and the things you shared with us and the staff and everybody else buying into what we're doing, we're so incredible. You know that the impact that you made on us and our ability now to try to use that impact and exponentially spread it and move it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, the power of belief. I mean you're telling that story and I can recall watching the game on TV and I'm sitting here on the edge of my seat, just you're going through telling it and sometimes I've never been to any broadcast school or anything like that. But sometimes the best thing I can do when I'm doing these podcasts is just shut up and listen and, and you know, I was like don't say a word because this, this is just too good. And you know, I I was hoping, if it's possible, I have two more questions for you, yeah, yeah, oh, I'm good, I'm good. Well, actually I want to make it three, and the first one is a quick one, but I ask it of every guest Hate losing or love winning.
Speaker 3:I'm a terrible loser. No, yeah, I don't know, I love winning, but the losing part, the losing part. My wife, early in my children's lives, made me quit playing board games and different things with my kids to play to win. And she goes. You know, they're only like four. Yeah, hell, they got to learn how to play, let's go. You know I'm not kind of no slight, but no, I just. You know, I learned a lot. I learned more lessons losing than I did winning. To be honest, I really and I can't say that I'm proud at how I reacted to losing at times.
Speaker 1:I did a little research and you know as great a coach as you are. It almost didn't happen, right, because I really wish you could just tell the story about where you were like I'm done with baseball and you were going to where I was a PE teacher.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you know it was where I was so locked in during that 2016 season, even before we got on that run to go to Omaha. You know about my faith and all that and all that. I probably was as faith-driven as I was then back in. I think it was the second or third year I was here at Coastal, but yet I wanted it was more about me than it was about us, if that makes sense to you. I had a lot of help with the funds that it took to try to build a program. You know, it's kind of right at the start of the people were starting to put a little bit of money into baseball and things like that. I mean, we had scholarship, Our operating budget was terrible, our stadium was horrible. I mean, we had some strikes against us and that old adage of God's going to do things according to his schedule, not according to yours.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I wasn't willing to be patient. I wasn't a very faithful steward at that point in time. I went to church, read the the bible, prayed a lot, but also was selfish about okay, well, I'm doing all these things and when's my turn? You know when? When are when are we going to do this. When are we going to do that? And I, you know, I, just I. I got so beat down because, honestly, exactly the question you just asked better winner or better loser? I was definitely not a better loser and it beat me down. I saw things in the eyes of a negative person, you know. I mean, the glass was half full, whereas I'd lived my life being half full, but now it was, you know, half empty. However you wanted to look at it, you know it was. I'm looking at the bottom end, not the top end, and you know it just got to a point where I'm going. You know they're not giving me money to recruit with. I have to use my own car and I have to. You know, that guy had a massive head-on accident on a beltway in DC. I don't know how I lived through that, so many things played into it. And then I'll look up and, man boy, you're making $34,000 and you're working 12 months a year, seven days a week, all the time always. Months a year, seven days a week, all the time always. And your wife is making three thousand dollars more than you and enjoying the whole summer off, enjoying the vacations and the easters and the you know the labor days and whatever, you're out doing camp and beating the bushes and doing all that. Oh man, yeah. But this, this ain't this, this isn't worth it. And you know, I never forget. I mean, I had the contract.
Speaker 3:It was that north myrtle beach middle school I was gonna be a pe teacher and I'm like, okay, if that's what it's got to be, that's what it's got to be, that's what it's got to be. At least I'll be able to spend time with my family, I can coach my own kids and do my own thing or whatever. I just feel like that's where I'm at. So, on the way to hand it in, instead of mail it, I'm driving down the main strip down here to get to 17, to go north and go north myrtle beach. Uh, 501 is uh where my church is, and so, uh, honestly, it was like I'm kind of like I'm crying the whole time because I don't want to do it. I don't know why I'm doing it. I'm like, why am I doing it? I'm sitting here crying. If it was right, I should be happy, for whatever reason, I don't know. I don't know if God pulled the steering wheel to the right or if I turned it to the right? I honestly do not know.
Speaker 3:For some reason, I ended up at our community church. I walked in and asked is there any chance Ronnie's here? Ronnie Byrd was our pastor. He was also a personal friend. We'd gotten in the three years we'd been there. He was growing this church. My wife and I had been a part of doing years we'd been there, we, he was growing this church, and you know, my wife and I then, uh, you know they're a part of doing a lot of stuff. They're not not money wise, but volunteering and doing things like that and stuff. And his family. Their ages were the same as as my kids, so they got to be all of them. We'll get buddy and thank god, oh man, he was there. He was there. Yeah, we. We talked for at least two hours, maybe more, about this and that, whatever.
Speaker 3:And you know I still remember tearing that contract up in his office. But to this day, I still remember that feeling of like okay, he just made me realize that I can't expect God to step forward on my timetable. Just like you, go back 10 to 2010. I had a team that was 55 and 8. Like you know, you go back 10 to 2010. I had a team that was 55-8. And we don't make it to Omaha. We ended up having five major league players off that team. My son was one of the draft picks on that team.
Speaker 3:That killed me, absolutely killed me, absolutely killed me. I'm going all this hard work, all this stuff going back to I mean, I'm thinking about tearing the contract up and doing all this. God did that to see if I would be humble to him, that I would follow him without question, that I would be a disciple for him. And here he is going to give me this moment. He's going to allow me to go to Omaha with an incredibly talented team, but also my son to get to experience this with me. There's nowhere going, there's no shot where I'm going and then we don't go.
Speaker 3:And I'm telling you, man, that in my life if there's ever been a point where you toss the towel in, it was there. I'll be honest, I mean I, I just like god. How can this be? You know? I mean no, you know, on top of that, there would have been the opportunity to the key to, you know, kill, the evil giant university of South Carolina, who we had been a branch school of from inception until a few years before We'd been USC at Coastal Carolina, we were part of their system, we had not been our own school. I'm thinking, man, this is the perfect stall, everything that could ever possibly work the right way. I couldn't have drawn this up here. I am not being faithful the way I should be at times because of this and that and doubting that God had me and this and that.
Speaker 3:So you know, it was very all that was so very interesting, because I feel like I had no idea the things that happened at LSU and then Omaha. I wasn't prepared for. I wasn't prepared for him to be in my life at that type of level, so to speak, and so I think he surrounded me on several occasions in my life where I could have very well gone down a different path and he had other people, faith-driven people, step into my life and change me of my line and changed me. You know, uh, one of the key things that happened in 16, a good buddy of mine bought, bought me a book, uh, guy named mark roach, uh, who was our developmental guy here. He, he had played baseball at coastal and and stuff and uh, he's guys our assistant AD for a while and then got into development.
Speaker 3:He put a book on my desk one day over the summer of 15 by Todd Gongwork. It's called Lead for God's Sake. That book changed my life and I encourage anyone who listens to this podcast buy that book $9.99. And if it doesn't have a significant impact on your life, you tell Ken, I'll marry you to $9.99. I cross the board if it's $1,000. I'll mail it to you.
Speaker 3:That's one of the best books I've ever ever read, you know, and it is, it is. It's uh, you know, it's just an incredible book and out of work that book taught me. It's basically teaching you about seeking your why W-H-Y and why. Why are you here, ken? Why is Gary Gilmore here? Why did God put us on this earth? What is it that he's asking of us in our faithfulness to him? What is it he's asking?
Speaker 3:One of the things for me that came out of that book was that the most important thing that he put me on this earth for was to develop a relationship. That's why he put me in coaching. He gave me an opportunity to have relationships with 40-plus players every single year, a lot of times, steady staffs, occasionally a change here and there, but for the most part you got to touch 40 lives every single year for 39 total years and in that there's so many aspects of relationship. One of the things that came out of it for me was that In that there's so many aspects of relationship. One of the things that came out of it for me was that I needed to be able to openly tell my players in all settings that I love them, whether they succeeded, they got the hit, they threw the innings to win the game, whatever it is. They make the Dean's List, they make this, whatever setting it is.
Speaker 3:We're walking down the hallway, walking down the sidewalk campus. We pass each other. I need to look up over CO love you, man. And just keep walking. And so that they know and understand in my heart they're just like my children. I love them unconditionally. None of them are perfect I'm surely not perfect but that through love we can create a dynamic power that other people cannot circumvent if we truly love one another.
Speaker 3:Because the one thing that happens when you do that, when you have a group, especially in baseball, and probably can say that about a lot of sports or whatever, or your teammates, when a guy in front of you fails, the guy behind is going love you, man. I'm going to pick you up right here. I got you and we can go play by play for those last 21 games of Coastal's 2016 season. I can show you where this guy failed. In a big setting, in a big moment, he failed. The next guy picked him up over and over and over again and you can watch them tell each other that mess Every time when they're doing this or that.
Speaker 3:I mean it's amazing. And if one of them were to call me right now, every time when they're doing this or that, I mean it's amazing. And if one of them were to call me right now, I'd pick up the phone call first thing out of any of them's mouth that's played in this program Coach, I love you. That'd be the first thing that comes out of their mouth. And that's probably of all things in life. I could take all the trophies, all the accolades, all the things. I would cherish that I love you more than anything.
Speaker 1:You know I've kept you on for quite a while here and I've got to finish up with one final question, and can you share how the Brooks and Dunn song, Red Dirt Road, became a part of baseball?
Speaker 3:Coach Tom was my pitching coach, he was my music boss. All the players had walk up songs or whatever you know, and he was just he says, gil, you gotta have one stuff. Yeah, man, you walk up. You know, you turn in the light up car to the umpire. You need your walk up song to play, man. So he kept drilling me and grilling me or whatever. And he said he said what one song tells everybody who you are and what you're about? I said I, you know. I said I really don't know. I said there's a bunch of songs I love and this and that I said.
Speaker 3:But you know, I said red dirt road probably tells as much about my life as anything. I said, man, I grew up in a country, on a farm. I said I grew up on a red dirt road. Man, I said I learned to drink beer on that road. I learned to chase girls on that road. I said I rode my, my, my little, uh, mountain bike to elementary school on that road. I said all my, all my buddies that lived on that road, I said that that red their road, man, I said. I said I learned everything about life on that road. I said that it ran several miles and I said, you know, I said so many things in my life happened on that, on a red dirt road.
Speaker 3:I said that's it. And next thing I know they're playing that thing and, uh, I mean it's, it's crazy, I mean it really is. I mean it was really cool last year or two years ago, where it is now, you know, kind of doing my final hurrah that last year I mean every single team we played on the road, their coaches, every one of them did something to me or for me or whatever. It was so humbling and this and that, but basically every one of them play my red dirt road.
Speaker 3:Where I went, the whole fight on the road it was, it was, it was really it was very cool. To be honest, I mean our players even got into it. I mean you're like, oh yeah, you know just, you know, I just I just um, and I never really realized at the time, ken, I feel like I'm an insanely humble person. I never seek attention, never want attention. Nothing I ever do do I do it for attention, but you know, for so, for all of those guys and so many people in this profession that reached out to me and not to just congratulate me on being able to retire in a good career.
Speaker 1:But, amen, your life impacted mine and just want to say thanks yeah, that's, uh, that's just about every coach I get on the podcast.
Speaker 1:They, they, they talk about the relationships, probably more than they talk about winning any game or anything else in their coaching career, and both of us are.
Speaker 1:You know we're facing some very challenging surgeries coming up here and you know I want to wish you the best of luck and you know we're thinking how you're praying for you. And you know you're just truly a class act. I met you years ago when I took my team down to Myrtle Beach at Buckeye Valley, and you didn't know me from a man in the moon and and you took the time to talk to me and, uh, you know this is just one of the big thrills of me getting a chance to to do this podcast, to be able to have you as a guest. And you know, I know, I, I, I can't thank you enough and you're clearly one of the best to ever step in a dugout at the college level and you know you won a college world series. But, more importantly, you're you're just a class act and a great person and thank you so much for joining me here on baseball coaches.
Speaker 3:on club well, I'm very humbled and honored that you asked me and, uh, I ditto to the prayer for you and and your challenges and health and, uh, you know, I I do. I do think there are times when, uh think there are times when God gives us challenges like the ones that we have, to really draw us super near to Him and to put our life in the will of His hands. I keep telling people that this is going to go south on me. When he feels like my work here is done, I feel great, you look awesome, you're working, still getting it done and doing things.
Speaker 3:As long as God has things for us to do, he's going to find a way to keep us there. We just have to trust in Him. I'm sure He'll keep you in my prayers every night as well. Hopefully, ken, we can do this again at some other time. One thing that would be fun for me is if you ever put a podcast together and we get five or six of us coaches on at the same time, we can have a lot of fun and I think you could ask some very cool questions and put us on the spot a little bit, and you guys would be all over each other, so I'd say you'd probably be one of the more popular podcasts are out there well, absolutely, if you put the guest list together and and I'll, I'll take care of the others, the other part.
Speaker 3:I'll. I'll do that, I'll think about that for a little bit and uh, uh, think of uh, four or five guys that you know that. I know that would be an absolute hoot on here and I honestly think all podcasts are great, but the ones where there are multiple people on there and you kind of especially when they know each other and they know things about each other or whatever, and they can get a dig in here and there it's actually very knowledgeable, but it's also a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm all winning. So, coach, I thank you again.
Speaker 3:I I really do appreciate this oh, you're so welcome, and may god be with you, and uh be with all the people that listen to this, and uh appreciate you much, my friend special thanks.
Speaker 1:Special thanks to 2016 College World Series champion for the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, gary Gilmore, for joining Baseball Coaches Unplugged. Be sure and tune in every Wednesday for a new show. Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. As always, I'm your host Coach, ken Carpenter. Thanks for listening to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, thank you.
