Retiring Coastal Carolina HC Gary Gilmore explains NIL money’s ’ridiculous’ impact on college baseball

Coastal Carolina head coach Gary Gilmore saw his college baseball career come to a bitter end on Sunday. In his final game at the Chanticleers' helm, they suffered a narrow 6-5 defeat against the Clemson Tigers to crash out of the Clemson Regional and end their postseason.

Following the Chanticleers' loss, Gilmore vented his frustrations at the current state of college baseball, targeting the name, image and likeness (NIL) system. He believes the sport will suffer further if things continue to go the way they currently are.

""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," Gilmore said.

"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 because they would spend however much money they need to do it. That’s what’s going on right now."

Gilmore added that he thinks it's "ridiculous."

"I mean, there's not a level playing field. And it's just ridiculous to me. As much as I'm gonna miss the kids — and I'm gonna miss the heck out of them — dealing with that mess. I'm telling you right now, the fact there are teams in college baseball giving $2 million-plus dollars of NIL money away? I mean, come on, man."

Coastal Carolina HC Gary Gilmore believes this problem has a solution

Gilmore believes putting some parts of such large sums of NIL money in trusts would offer a solution to this issue.

"A real system would be one where they get a little bit of money, and then they put money in a trust, and this and that, so that you don't have the horror stories you see in the NFL and in different places," Gilmore said.

"There has to be a better way because, like I said, professional sports would go in the toilet if we use this system.

Gilmore departs Coastal Carolina as arguably one of the most successful coaches in the program's history. In a season spanning 29 seasons, he won 14 regular season titles (11 Big South and three Sun Belt) and 13 conference tournaments (11 Big South and two Sun Belt). In addition, he led the program to their only College World Series victory in 2016, when they beat the Arizona Wildcats.