Coastal’s Kevin Schnall will be South Carolina’s next baseball coach
Coastal Carolina’s Kevin Schnall is going to be South Carolina’s next baseball coach.
Nothing was immediately official regarding a hire. TheBigSpur’s JC Shurburtt and Gamecock247’s John Whittle first reported the move Tuesday along with national insiders from Baseball America and D1 Baseball. The State confirmed the hire through an athletics source.
Schnall is an obvious choice for Gamecocks Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati after the school parted ways with Mainieri and let go of interim coach Monte Lee following a 35-loss season.
Donati — making his first major coaching hire since taking over at USC — is entrusting the 49-year-old Schnall with returning South Carolina baseball to the glory days it hasn’t experienced since Ray Tanner transitioned from baseball coach to AD in 2013.
None of Tanner’s three successors — Chad Holbrook (2013-17), Mark Kingston (2018-24) nor Paul Mainieri (2024-25) — managed to advance to the College World Series, let alone put the Gamecocks in position for a third national championship.
Perhaps the immediate question South Carolina fans will ask: What took so long to make the hire? Coastal Carolina’s season ended on May 31, so why didn’t the Gamecocks scoop up Schnall within a few days?
The answer could be that Schnall was not the first choice for Donati, who was almost certainly trying to lure another coach whose team advanced to the College World Series. Numerous reports suggest that USC’s top target was North Carolina head coach Scott Forbes, who led the Tar Heels to Omaha for the second time in three years.
South Carolina “as expected since day one, will name Coastal Carolina’s Kevin Schnall as its head coach,” D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers posted to X on Tuesday. “Schnall, despite flirtations with Scott Forbes (that wasn’t happening), has been the frontrunner for the #Gamecocks job all along. Good job by SC not to overthink this.”
With the decision locked in, Schnall will immediately get to work filling his staff at USC and building up the roster. The Gamecocks have lost at least 20 players to the transfer portal since it opened June 1.
A former catcher for Coastal Carolina (1998-99), Schnall spent 21 years as an assistant coach for the Chanticleers under legendary coach Gary Gilmore — which included being on staff for the Chants’ 2016 national championship — before taking over his alma mater in 2025.
In his first year as a head coach, Schnall led Coastal to a school-record 56 wins and a spot in the College World Series finals, where the Chanticleers fell to LSU. It was the best finish by a mid-major program since the Chants won it all in 2016 — a feat that could be considered even more impressive given the emergence of NIL and the transfer portal.
In 2026, despite dealing with a number of key injuries, became just one of four reigning College World Series participants to make the NCAA Tournament, but fell in the Tallahassee Regional to finish the season with a 37-23 record.
While his salary details are not immediately known, Schnall likely tripled his salary by accepting the South Carolina job. Though his current contract at Coastal included loads of incentives, Schnall’s base salary was just $500,000 — and that’s compared with the 2026 compensation of Mainieri ($1.3 million).
South Carolina reportedly considered Georgia Tech’s James Ramsey, Troy’s Skylar Meade, West Virginia’s Steve Sabins and Kansas’ Dan Fitzpatrick, among others, for the opening.
This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 9:47 AM.
