GamecockCentral Baseball

South Carolina hiring Coastal Carolina's Kevin Schnall as next head coach

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South Carolina is hiring Coastal Carolina’s Kevin Schnall as the program’s next head coach. The deal is pending approval from the school’s Board of Trustees.

The move comes more than two months after athletics director Jeremiah Donati and former head coach Paul Mainieri agreed to part ways back on March 21.

Schnall will become South Carolina’s fourth head coach since 2012 and will be tasked with restoring the program to national prominence. He takes over a program coming off the two worst seasons in its history and will look to guide the Gamecocks back to the College World Series for the first time since 2012.

Schnall, who spent nearly three decades at Coastal Carolina as both a player and coach, had served as the Chanticleers’ head coach since 2025 following Gary Gilmore’s retirement.

In his first season at the helm, Schnall guided Coastal Carolina to 56 wins and a runner-up finish at the College World Series. Along the way, the Chanticleers also captured both the Sun Belt regular-season and conference tournament championships while losing just 13 games all season.

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As a direct result of that success, Schnall earned Baseball America’s College Coach of the Year, Sun Belt Coach of the Year and Perfect Game Coach of the Year honors.

The Chanticleers took a step back in 2026 but still won 37 games and returned to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year under Schnall. Their postseason run was much shorter this time around, however, as they went 0-2 and were eliminated in the Tallahassee Regional.

Overall, Schnall went 93-36 (.721) in two seasons as Coastal’s head coach.

Schnall’s ties to Coastal go all the way back to his playing days when he was an All-American catcher for the Chanticleers from 1995-99. He got into coaching two years later and was an assistant on Gilmore’s staff from 2001-12.

In 2013, Schnall left to join Terry Rooney’s staff at UCF as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for three seasons. He then returned to Conway in 2016 as Coastal’s associate head coach and helped the Chanticleers to win the College World Series in his first year back. He remained in this role until 2024.