Legendary NCAA baseball coach slams NIL system
Coastal Carolina head coach Gary Gilmore on Sunday coached his last college baseball game. Gilmore made sure to slam the current NIL-fueled NCAA landscape on his way out.
Gilmore’s Coastal Carolina squad was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament after a 12-5 beatdown at the hands of Clemson in the finals of the Clemson Regional at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson, S.C.
The Chanticleers trailed 6-5 heading into the bottom of the 8th inning but allowed the Tigers to plate 6 more runs to put the game away. It didn’t help that Coastal Carolina got bamboozled by a hidden-ball trick by a Clemson infielder in the 2nd inning.
During his final NCAA baseball tournament press conference, Gilmore lambasted the NIL system for destroying parity across college sports.
“If you had a system [in professional sports] where everyone was a free agent every year, do you realize what chaos it would be? [The leagues] would go away. You wouldn’t have those sports. If you did, in baseball it would be the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Dodgers, Texas, and the rest of the teams couldn’t compete. … That’s what’s going on right now,” said Gilmore.
“It’s not a level playing field. … The fact that there are teams in college baseball giving $2 million of NIL money away. I mean come on, man.”
Following elimination, Coastal Carolina’s coach had plenty of time to explain what he thinks is wrong with the NIL era of college sports
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Gilmore suggested an alternative system where players get most of their NIL money in a trust. He also lamented the increasing number of players who enter the transfer portal in pursuit of larger NIL deals.
Gilmore in March announced his plan to retire at season’s end. He has been the head baseball coach at Coastal Carolina since 1995.
Gilmore in 2001 led the school to its first-ever NCAA baseball tournament appearance in 2001. They’ve made 19 postseason appearances since then, including Coastal Carolina’s incredible College World Series win in 2016.