Kevin Schnall now considers Conway, South Carolina home, but he’s proud to point out the groundwork for his rising career was laid in Hamilton Township.
Schnall is the associate head coach for the Coastal Carolina baseball team, which stunned the college baseball world on June 30 by defeating Arizona to win the College World Series. He is next in line to become the Chanticleers’ headman when veteran mentor Gary Gilmore retires in 2020.
One day after Coastal Carolina pulled off one of the greatest upsets in any NCAA sport in recent memory, Schnall remembered his roots during a phone conversation with the Hamilton Post, just prior to the team’s downtown victory parade.
“I attribute a lot of [my success to] it,” Schnall said. “I cherish those times I had. I still think about the time I had at Nottingham Little League and the impact a lot of those coaches had on me, starting with Roger Moore. He was one of the first coaches and my first all-star coach. He made a huge impact on me. His commitment and enthusiasm was something I’ll never forget. Just the commitment across the board at Nottingham Little League was really special and really made me love baseball.”
It was the kind of commitment that Schnall returned to his coaches as a youngster. The son of Steve Schnall—an NFL Assistant for the Giants, Chiefs and Chargers—Schnall came up during a time when kids played for the pride of their town instead of just showcasing their talents in a travel program.
“Kevin and all the kids from that period who grew up playing baseball would come to our township camp,” said former Steinert coach Rich Giallella. “Even if they had all-stars, they would come at nine in the morning ready to play, ready to learn, and then go play their game in the afternoon. They just enjoyed the game as you should enjoy the game as a kid. It was no negative. You just played, and you learned in the morning.”
Schnall learned his lessons well.
The Mercerville native lauded Giallella and Post 31 manager Rick Freeman for their teachings at camp. He praised former Hamilton West coach Marty Flynn—whose son Anthony works for the Yankees front office and is lifelong friends with Schnall—for his work in Babe Ruth. He acknowledged his head varsity coaches at Notre Dame High—Vince Ardery, John Simone and Sam Tola, along with his freshman coach, Ken Tucci. A standout catcher as a player, Schnall worked under Rider University Hall of Fame catcher John Wagner at a camp in Holmdel.
“John Wagner is someone I’ll never forget; he taught me things I still think about today,” said Schnall, who has coached two finalists for the Johnny Bench Award at CC. “It’s amazing to reflect back and remember those people and remember the fact they helped lay the foundation for some of the things I do today. Those were the guys I really looked up to. At that time in my life, my dad really wasn’t around a lot because of his coaching. So those guys became mentors and helped me see things differently.”
Do not think, however, that Steve Schnall was not an important part of the process. He was actually the key to it all.
“I’m a coach because of my dad,” Schnall said. “He’s the best coach I ever had, the best coach I ever saw, and as I started to get older through my college career, I didn’t know 100 percent, but I felt like this is what I wanted to do. At the end of the day, he’s the coach I tried to emulate the most. But there’s no question the foundation was set during my early years, and I was really fortunate to have those guys as coaches.”
Schnall made the Notre Dame varsity as a sophomore and played under three coaches in three years. Even back then, he showed the type of maturity that could make a good leader.
“As a sophomore, Kevin was an excellent receiver with a great arm,” said Simone, an ND assistant who later replaced Ardery. “He fit in real good with a senior-dominated team.”
“He was a catcher beyond his years,” said Ardery, who had Schnall as a sophomore. “His dad was a great friend of mine and helped us out, and Kevin was definitely like a coach’s son. Being a catcher, you’ve got to know the game. He played with some top people and played under some great coaches, and I’m sure he picked up something from each of them.”
Despite his affection and respect for Giallella, Schnall did everything he could to beat him when Notre Dame played Steinert.
“He was just a tough kid,” Giallella said. “I always remember him being tough, very competitive. I think that came from his family and his background. When I coached against him at Notre Dame, he’d say hello to you after the game but during the game he was your enemy and out to beat you.”
Schnall’s talent and competitive nature earned him a spot at Potomac junior college, where his former ND teammate (and Hamilton native) Brendan Dougherty encouraged him to play.
“Potomac State was the perfect step for me and the best decision I ever made,” Schnall said. “It’s kind of crazy how it works out, Brendan Dougherty went from Potomac to Coastal Carolina, he kind of helped the recruiting of me there, too. I was fortunate that Coach Gilmore came and saw me play when I was in South Carolina for a spring break trip, and I had two years of great development at Coastal. I grew up in a lot of different ways.”
After his senior year, Schnall was taken by Cincinnati in the 25th round of the MLB draft and played a full season for two teams in 1999. After playing just two games of Single-A ball in 2000, Kevin was approached by Gilmore about coming back. Despite a career professional average of .322, he took the offer.
“I told him I needed a couple days to chew on it and digest it,” Schnall said. “I think within 24 hours I said ‘I’m going to do it.’ It was the hardest decision in my life to kind of hang up the spikes but as I look back today it was kind of the best decision.”
Schnall served as an assistant for the next 12 years, learning from Gilmore the game of college baseball inside and out. Finally, he decided it was time for a change and became an assistant at Central Florida.
“From a professional standpoint, I felt like I needed to spread my wings, see something different,” Schnall said. “The opportunity at UCF opened up, there was a young head coach (Terry Rooney) down there who had coached at Notre Dame, at LSU, and was regarded as one of the top recruiters. I just wanted to see something different.
“Obviously the state of Florida is one of the best states in all America when it comes to talent level in baseball. I put my footprint down there so to speak. To develop some relationships there was important. I did develop some great relationships and friendships to last a lifetime.”
Once again, Gilmore came calling. After deciding he would step down after the 2020 season, the veteran coach basically hand-picked his successor by asking Schnall to return as associate head coach this season with the idea he would take over the program in five years.
The decision was a no-brainer for Schnall and wife Megan, as their son Jayden and daughter Fallon were both born in South Carolina. He rejoined a coaching staff that also included Hightstown High graduate Matt Schilling, and the timing was serendipitous.
“Couldn’t have picked a better time to come back, huh?” Schnall said with a laugh.
Coastal Carolina was making its first appearance in the College World Series and was everybody’s afterthought despite beating powers North Carolina State twice in the regionals and LSU twice in the Super Regionals. They raised some eyebrows by beating No. 1 ranked Florida in the opening game of the CWS but got quickly dropped into the elimination bracket with a loss to TCU.
The Chanticleers then won three straight do-or-die games, the last two coming over TCU. That pitted them against Arizona, one of the nation’s most historically successful college baseball programs. Once again CC had its back to the wall by losing the first game of the best-of-three finals. Coastal responded with two straight one-run wins to become the first team since Minnesota in 1956 to win the CWS in its first trip.
The victory set off a wild celebration in South Carolina.
“It was awesome,” Schnall said. “We got back into the airport about 11:30 at night and there were 2,000, 3,000 people waiting for us. It was unbelievable. The fire station, the police officers, everybody was there. And then a big parade in town. It’s just awesome.”
Not only was Conway impressed, so were the Chanticleers’ vanquished rivals. In a tremendous show of class, TCU took out a full page, front-page ad in The Sun News, the daily paper that serves the Conway/Myrtle Beach area. The ad congratulated the Chanticleers in huge, bold letters.
But Texas wasn’t the only part of the country taking a fancy to the upstarts.
“To see them win that world championship, they don’t realize who they touched,” Giallella said. “All of us in this area were watching and really inspired by that mid-level team winning the national championship. It was like Villanova winning. It wasn’t the giant winning. This time they slayed the giants—LSU, Florida, Arizona. It makes you feel good that kids from this area are succeeding in the game that they love.”
And Schnall is proud to admit he fell in love with it in Hamilton Township.
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