Coastal Carolina's HC Gary Gilmore Goes on an Anti-NIL Tirade That Demonstrates Just How Out of Touch these College Coaches Are
Coastal Carolina lost to Clemson in an NCAA Regional that Ohio's Tate covered:
... not only ending their season, but the career of head coach Gary Gilmore, who is retiring.
And good for him. At the tender age of 66, anyone deserves the chance to rest on the laurels of their professional life in peace and quiet. As David Bowie sang so eloquently, "Golden Years. Go-o-old, whop whop whop." And having been successful to the point he he's won multiple Coach of the Year honors and led the Chanticleers to a National Title in 2016, Gilmore has big, comfortable, Memory Foam laurels to rest upon.
But it's the manner in which he called it a career that we're hear to discuss:
MSN - During his final NCAA baseball tournament press conference, Gilmore lambasted the NIL system for destroying parity across college sports.
“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. 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. … That’s what’s going on right now,” said Gilmore.
“It’s not a level playing field. … The fact that there are teams in college baseball giving $2 million of NIL money away. I mean come on, man.”
Gilmore suggested an alternative system where players get most of their NIL money in a trust. He also lamented the increasing number of players who enter the transfer portal in pursuit of larger NIL deals.
When he wasn't bellyaching about competitive balance and suggesting college athletes shouldn't get paid because they'll simply piss their money away, Gilmore cited the example of Trevor Lawrence, saying he made jack squat while at Clemson when he probably should've been getting paid more than he does in the NFL. But then complained because some "fourth string tackle" is making NIL money too. And that's just not right.
Look, I want to be fair to Gilmore because it's not like he's a bad guy who gets a perverse glee out of watching 18-22 year olds risk their health while generating revenue for everyone around them and leaving school without a dime in their pockets. Which is the system Gilmore got to benefit from until about 10 minutes ago. Besides, I know what it's like to live in a certain reality your whole life, only to one day find it doesn't make a bloody bit of sense to you any more. I get that same feeling every time someone sends me a TikTok that's supposed to be funny. The world changes. And when it does, it's hardest on the people who got the most of out the old ways. In this example, that's the college coaches and administrators.
The chaos Gilmore describes didn't ruin the NCAA; it's the result of it. What the Gilmores and Nick Sabans have complained about is a market correction. A necessary one. NILs and transfer portals and athletes ditching schools they committed to is a consequence of over a century of a system that made no sense on any level.
I'm sure the old system made total sense to coaches. It was easier for them to navigate, that much is sure. In the same way the Romans would create a wasteland and call it "peace." I have no doubt that the people who benefited from Indentured Servitude and collected the taxes weren't happy with the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, either. And I'm sure being a factory owner during the Industrial Revolution was a hoot, before the workers caught on to the fact that all those long days of dangerous, life-shortening labor wasn't paying their bills and started organizing for better conditions and a living wage.
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These guys can decry how much harder their job is now. That's undoubtedly true. But that's falling on deaf ears to generations of NCAA athletes who got committed to a school only to see the coach that recruited them head off to a better gig with more money, more power, more State Troopers escorting them off the field, book deals and TV shows no one ever watched. Now that the cleat is finally on the other foot, you're going to have a hard time finding anyone willing to cry the buckets with these people.
All the NIL funds going these players - even the fourth string tackles - proves, is that the money was there all along. Only now, it's going to the ones who deserve it. If a few coaches have to retire in disgusting to make that point, it's a sacrifice we're all willing to make. Happy retirement and godspeed, Coach Gilmore.