The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are making their first-ever appearance in the College World Series, and it has been an exciting ride. On the road at NC State as the #2 seed in that Regional, Coastal overcame a two-run deficit in a 9^th inning that lasted nearly 12 hours thanks to an overnight weather delay, to defeat the host school and advance to the Super Regionals at LSU.

A walk-off win in the 9^th at “The Box” in Baton Rouge sent the “Chants” to Omaha where we caught up with Assistant Coach Matt Schilling preparing for their opening game against Florida. Matt worked for the Baseball Factory for 12 years as Senior Director of On-Field Instruction where he worked to develop young players and help them realize their dream of playing at the next level. Matt played at Coastal in 1993 and ’94 before coaching from ’95-00 including serving on current Head Coach Gary Gilmore’s first staff. After his lengthy stay at Baseball Factory, Matt returned to the dugout at CCU in the summer of 2012. Since then he has been working closely with the infielders and hitters to build this World Series team.

Schilling, during his time with the Baseball Factory

Steve Bernhardt: Has it even sunk in yet that you and your team are in Omaha?

Matt Schilling: No, not at all. With this team in particular, we have really focused on the process and we really focus on winning each pitch. You play your whole season trying to get better and trying to get as good as you can possibly be, so that when it comes time to the postseason, you’re most prepared. As a coach, you kind of never get out of coach-mode and you keep thinking, “ok, we have to play NC State, let’s prepare for NC State” and “what do we have to do to be successful against LSU?” And now we’re here, and obviously, its unbelievable but, now you’re brain shifts to, “how do we prepare to win pitches against Florida?” I think it’ll really sink in, truly, once everything’s done and you have a moment to catch your breath and reflect on it.

SB: Going back to NC State in the Regional with the crazy rain delay in the 9th, down two in the winner-take-all game…once the tarp goes on and you guys find out its shut down, what’s the bus ride back to the hotel like?

MS: Our guys were…irritated to say the least. We really had some momentum going and we had a three-game series at Georgia Tech where we got swept, kind of towards the end of the season. They beat us the first game. The second game, we had a weather stoppage and the same thing happened; we had to come back the next day to continue it. Then there was more weather stoppages and every time we had stoppages in that series was when we had momentum going. So now here we’re at NC State and right when we get it going in the first game, there was a weather stoppage and then in the championship game there was another…so our guys were just like, “let’s go, lets do this, we’re sick of these weather stoppages.”

SB: As a staff, do you address them as a team that night or the next day? What’s the philosophy of having to wait that long until mid afternoon the next day to play?

MS: We waited to discuss with them until the next day, because, with some of the rain delays up to that point, it was 12:30, quarter to one in the morning. Our focus was to get the guys back to the hotel, get them a good, hot meal and get them in bed so they could get some rest for the next day. Then the next day we addressed them after the team breakfast and we had watched even more video on their pitcher and to be honest with you, we had a lefty-on-lefty power hitter coming up (G.K. Young, junior DH/C) and they had a bullpen guy named (Sean) Adler, a lefty who was very good and we thought for sure they’d put him in the game, so we had all of our upcoming hitters prepped to face him. They wound up sticking with their right hander.

SB: You guys pull off that great comeback and win it, go to the Super Regionals.. what was that atmosphere like at “The Box” down at LSU?

MS: Those fans down there are fantastic. They are rabid about the LSU Tigers and for the most part, they are very respectful of the game, they know the game, know whats going and mostly, they love their Tigers. They root hard and cheer for their program like no other program I’ve seen before.

SB: We had a little bit of discussion with our GTP (Game Time Pressure)… In that kind of environment, is there anything special you guys did throughout the Fall or Spring to prepare for something like that, with that many fans in purple and gold?

MS: I don’t know that you can ever truly prepare for that kind of a raucous environment, but the week of practice leading up to the Super, we practiced with the radio on at the stadium, blaring as loud as it could so that you could not communicate with each other. That was honestly the biggest effect; if you have multiple runners on, they hit a ball in the gap, you have to communicate through cuts and relays, or a sac bunt goes down and you’re trying to communicate. There’s really no way to communicate because you can’t hear each other so we spent a lot of time preparing that way and we also added some additional signs so that from the dugout to the players on field, we could position them. They were a hit-and-run team, so switching coverage. Most of our games, from the dugout, I can shout or whistle and our infielders will peek in at me, but there at LSU, you can’t do that because its so loud.

SB: You’re in the dugout when the winning run scores, what was your initial reaction?

MS: I turned around, because, the fans that were there behind the dugout, the entire section going up can look into the dugout and see the coaches standing on the railing, and we had a pretty good contingent of Coastal fans there… ‘Gilly’ (Head Coach Gary Gilmore) was coaching third at the time, (Associate Head Coach) Schnall was at first and our pitching coach, Coach Thomas, is in much better shape than I am, so when that happened, Coach Thomas was out of the dugout in a flash, the rest of the coaches were on the field… so from a coaching standpoint, there was really no one left in the dugout for me to congratulate! Our guys were out on the field in a blur and I’m not as spry as I used to be so I turned around, faced our fans and put my hands in the air and I sought out my wife and kids and when that was done, then I headed out on the field.

Schilling and Gilmore embracing after Coastal Carolina’s victory over LSU (Photo from Aaron Fitt, d1baseball.com)

SB: I know you’ve got a long history with Coastal and with Gilly and Schnall, so when you do make your way to the field and give those guys a hug, what did you say to them?

MS: With Kevin (Schnall) and I, it was like, “oh my god, this is insane!” but with Gilly, it’s actually pretty cool, because… Aaron Fitt from d1baseball.com, took a really, really good picture of Gilly jumping into my arms and me holding him up, and its kind of become a symbolic picture actually which is kind of cool. When Gilly took the job here, I was fortunate he hired me right away and he talked about Omaha the very first meeting we ever had… so we had a big embrace and it was kind of like, “holy cow, 21 years later, we’re finally here.”, so that was basically the gist of what him and I were hollering at each other.

SB: Now that you’re in Omaha, how does this compare to your last National Championship game when you were the goalie for Mercer Community College in the Soccer National Championship?

MS: (laughs) Well, with the soccer one, Mercer hosted the National Championship. It was fantastic, but everyone else across the country in junior college soccer dreamed of getting to Mercer, but we played there every day, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But, Omaha is truly a special place. It’s a neat town, the Old Market we’ve gotten to. TD Ameritrade Stadium is absolutely first-class. All the festivities around it, the Fan Fest, the people here. It’s really one of the best, if not the best event that I’ve ever been to. Today, our itinerary is packed, we’re getting ready to head over to the stadium for a photo shoot at the statue and then ESPN is going to shoot a bunch of clips of our guys, then we’ll practice, then we have an autograph session, hustle back to the hotel, shower and go back for a dinner with all the teams, then Opening Ceremonies. We don’t have a lot of time to think, so its a little crazy, but honestly, I think we’re looking forward to tomorrow where we don’t play the first day, so we’ll get back to a normal schedule; we’ll practice, have our scouting report meetings, we’ll be bearing down on video. But this place is everything I had hoped it would be and more.

SB: I know how much you stress Player Development and the Athletic Development that goes hand in hand with what we do here at the Factory. Anything special on the Player Development side that you have done this year with your guys. I know infield and hitting is your expertise, but anything in particular that has really worked in getting them better?

MS: With our whole program in general, we don’t get 5 or 6 blue-chip recruits every year, we get a lot of very talented players that have good tools and we take that and develop it, so that’s been Coach Gilmore’s philosophy since he’s been here, so we work to develop every aspect of the game possible. We have a Strength and Conditioning coach just for baseball, its the only sport he does; strength, conditioning and nutrition for baseball. It’s the first year we’ve had him, his name is Nick White and he, along with our athletic trainer, Barry Lippman, those two guys have been phenomenal. So barring the unfortunate collision that our second baseman had at the plate, who hurt his knee, we’ve been healthy all year. We’ve developed an immense amount of strength and explosiveness in our players which has been huge. The on-field part, our facilities are excellent and lend themselves to Player Development. Our players get a ton of swings, a unbelievable amount of ground balls, we’re all teachers here; we’re constantly coaching our guys up. We spend a ton of time on base running and its been pretty critical for us here in the post season.

SB: Do you guys use the Baseball Factory recruiting database?

MS: Absolutely. We try and get on there and do the searches and it helps us identify and locate players that we want to be more involved with. 100% because you’re not always going to be able to tell if a guy can really play the game when the lights come on until you get them to campus. So with the Point, Click and Recruit, the video and the evaluations, allow us to really determine, “hey, who’s got the tools that we can mold into a really good player” and that’s where its been so valuable for us.

SB: Your guys seem to have a toughness that might be stronger than other teams. How do you instill that? Is that in the players you recruit, in the culture you’ve set there, in the way you run practice? How do you get your guys to bounce back in tough situations?

MS: That is very much part of the culture. Its everything you’ve said; its the training program, the development program, the weight training, the unbelievable amount of academic study-hall hours that our guys are required to do by us. It’s all of those things. The kids you recruit, the makeup of the players you recruit. We’re fortunate to have many winning seasons here, so there’s a standard that has been set. With all of those things combined, with the fact that, we probably have one of the most special senior classes that I’ve ever been around. We have a core group of seniors and juniors that have been to two or three Regionals in their career. They had to travel to NC State and Texas A&M for the Regionals, Virginia Tech for a Regional. Our non-conference schedule, was in the Top 10 in terms of strength of schedule, so its a culmination of all those things. On top of that is this particular group of guys are just a special group of human beings.

SB: Anything from your 12 years at the Factory that you carried down there to help out?

MS: No doubt about it, for me, our pitching coach’s wife was unfortunately stricken with breast cancer, so I have been put on the road recruiting and Coach Gilmore took Coach Thomas off the road to focus on the home front. So, my days of evaluating players at the Baseball Factory have helped me on the recruiting end. For me, the biggest thing is to continue developing the Player Development core which is so important to us, the Player Development skills and ideas that I learned and gained while at the Factory, we just implemented them here at Coastal. A lot has been here at Coastal and a lot has now been brought here to Coastal from time there, so there’s a strong influence from Baseball Factory onto me and then me onto our guys here at Coastal.

SB: Thanks very much for your time. All of us here at the Factory wish you the best of luck. I hope you get to celebrate one more time.

MS: Thank you, appreciate the support from the Factory. I would love to celebrate again. Go Chants!