How a SC coach went from a red dirt road to one of country’s legendary baseball coaches

Much like the lyrics to the Brooks & Dunn song that for years called him to the baseball diamond, Gary Gilmore has learned that there is life at both ends of the red dirt road.

There’s the red dirt road that he grew up on in Virginia, learning the ins and outs of baseball while playing on a Little League team coached by his father.

And then there’s the “Red Dirt Road” that was played as Gilmore took to the field June 2, 2024, for his final game coaching the Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers.

The legendary coach known as Gilley walked his final red dirt path that day, wrapping up his 29th season as CCU’s head coach.

Two days after that heartbreaking loss when CCU was eliminated from the Clemson Regional and another chance to return to Omaha for an NCAA championship, Gilmore was back in his office packing.

He had signed up for Social Security that morning, and aside from a few more boxes, Gilmore was preparing to walk away from a 39-year coaching career that includes leading the Chants to a NCAA championship in 2016.

Just two months earlier, Gilmore was sitting in a black leather chair in his office, talking about wins and losses.

The truth is there have been a lot of wins and losses for the 66-year-old, both on the field and off. But the last four years may have been some of the toughest.

Gilmore has spent these years battling two kinds of cancer – one of those being a rare type that will never go away.

The cancer could be seen as a loss, but Gilmore doesn’t see it that way, relying on his doctors, family and his faith to get him through it.

“God will never give you more than you can handle. I keep telling him, ‘Hey man, you already gave me two, I’m good enough.’ I don’t think you have to test me again,” Gilmore laughs. “I laugh at all of it, because otherwise you just cry.”

But Gilmore realizes that his time is limited and he can’t control what happens in his body any more than he can control what happens on the field.

Gilmore announced his retirement last year, saying he wanted to spend time with his grandchildren and give back to his wife a few years that baseball has caused him to miss.

Spending these final months with the longtime coach, it’s clear that Gilmore has many layers to him beyond baseball. While the sport is important, there’s also his family, faith, and the legacy he’ll leave behind.

Gilmore’s career has been filled with many successes, including being named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year twice, having 91 players drafted for the Major Leagues and 125 players sign professional contracts, and leading CCU to that NCAA Championship in 2016.

“That’s what coaching is about,” Gilmore said. “You hope the successes are immediate in the sport, but that you lay a great foundation for (the players) to carry with them for life.”

Gilmore walks over to a stack of newspapers lying in a chair. They are papers from 2016 announcing CCU’s NCAA win. He is planning to send them to every player on the team that year, including a handwritten personal note to every player.

“I take the losses hard, but the next day I wake up completely renewed,” Gilmore said. “I honestly think that failures … The deep failures, they mark your life; they define who you are. Are you a fighter or a quitter? Who are you going to be?

“(Baseball is) the one sport that mirrors real life. There’s failure in every aspect of it.”

‘Poppa’s House’

Gary Gilmore and his wife, Cathy, both carrying a mug of coffee, stroll around their North Litchfield home before finally settling in at their dining room table.

Their dog Dinger moves skittishly around the downstairs, occasionally coming up for a quick pet from Gary or Cathy.

It’s a rare moment of downtime for the couple, as Gary Gilmore is in the height of baseball season at Coastal Carolina University which eats up the majority of his days with practices, games and coaching. Even on this May morning, Gary’s time is limited as he has to get to the Conway campus for a meeting and then ready for an upcoming game against UNC Greensboro on May 7.

Gary and Cathy Gilmore laugh as they talk about their life together. Their two-story home, where they have lived for 14 years, sits along the waterway.

At home, he’s known as “Poppa.” The sign “Poppa’s House” hangs on the front of the home, which is only a few minutes from the beach where Cathy loves to go shelling.

Gary teases his wife about all the seashells placed throughout the house. “She would go (to the beach) 365 days of the year,” Gary said.

The shells are almost as numerous as the photos of the couple’s two children and four grandchildren that tastefully cover almost every wall space throughout the home.

But Cathy’s shells don’t compare with the collection that Gary has amassed in his office. His wife admits that it’s so bad that she keeps the office door closed.

Gary then gets up from the table and walks toward the office.

“No, don’t go in there,” Cathy shouts as she follows, walking barefoot behind him.

The room is no doubt a catchall, a mancave, if you will, marking the years of a legendary career. There are items stuffed along shelves, on his desk and all over the floor. It is hard to maneuver in the room without bumping or possibly tripping over something.

Many are gifts from previous players and his time as a coach at CCU and at the University of South Carolina Aiken, where he spent 10 years coaching, and some are from his family. And then there are the personal touches, pictures given to him by grandchildren and a team photo from Little League that shows Gary and his father, who coached the team.

A picture of former Cincinnati Reds player Pete Rose is there as well. Gary said Rose was his favorite player.

And then there is the championship ring Gilmore received for leading CCU to a NCAA World Series victory in 2016 in Omaha, Nebraska.

The bottom of the house, which is outside and overlooks the waterway, has a pitching field where Poppa does batting practice with his grandson. It’s also where Cathy spends time reading after retiring as a special education teacher from Horry County Schools after 34 years.

Cathy tears up when she thinks about how her 1-year-old grandson won’t grow up with his grandpa coaching him like he did his 10-year-old grandson.

“He’s wonderful,” Cathy said. “He’s great with the kids. They love their daddy.”

She looks forward to traveling to see their children and grandchildren, boating, bike riding and taking a family vacation. The longest vacation Gary has ever taken was when he took his family to Yellowstone National Park.

The couple, who met in Virginia at Radford University, love to go bike riding. For him, it’s a time when he doesn’t have to think about wins or losses, practices or games.

“I don’t take phone calls,” Gilmore said. “It’s my release.”

He puts on his rock ‘n’ roll music and just pedals.

Fighting two kinds of cancer

Doctors have been able to control the cancer that could have easily taken his life.

He was diagnosed in 2020 with pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer that was also present in his liver. Gilmore goes to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston every three months for treatment.

Pancreatic cancer is on the slow end, and some people who have it die within a year, he said.

He went through 14 months of chemotherapy. He only missed work three times and maybe one or two games during that time.

Then, in September 2023, doctors discovered he had Stage 4 prostate cancer and underwent surgery to remove it.

His treatments have allowed him to continue coaching and end his career on his own terms.

He often hears, “You don’t look like you have two kinds of cancer and I don’t feel like it,” Gilmore said. “God has put everything in perspective.”

For him, the hardest part of the journey was sitting down and telling his children he has cancer.

The stadium that Gilley built

There was a time when Gilmore was ready to chuck his head coaching career.

A former Major League Baseball scout for both the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians, Gilmore had been hired to lead the Chants in 1996. And although he took a pay cut from his previous job at USC Aiken, Gilmore decided to take a chance on his alma mater.

But he wasn’t prepared for what was awaiting him when he got there.

Gilmore lived in a pop-up trailer near the back of the ballpark for six months with no plumbing.

The ballpark was old and in desperate need of repair. The field wasn’t much better, and the program had limited money to fix it.

The field had been used by a minor league team and when they left, no one took care of it. Gilmore likened it to a swamp.

By 1997, the stress of the situation had taken its toll.

With a contract in hand, Gilmore was on his way along U.S. 501 to accept a job teaching physical education at an elementary school.

“I’ll never forget. I was driving down the road, had tears running down my face, I’m going, ‘Shit, I don’t want to do this, but I don’t want to do what I’m doing now either. This ain’t fun,” he said.

But then God stepped in.

“It’s like God reached down and took the steering wheel,” Gilmore said. “We took a hard right and went straight to the church.”

His church at the time had relocated off of U.S. 501 in an old theater near the Waccamaw Pottery outlet. He stopped to talk with his pastor and about two hours later, he tore up the contract.

“I had to get past the self-worth,” he said, “of feeling like that self-worth as a human being was how many baseball games you win.”

So Gilmore went back to work and slowly he and his coaching staff worked to build the program, eventually seeing their hard work pay off with a new stadium and a championship team.

‘It was never about us’

The years may be showing with the gray and white streaks in Gilmore’s hair and beard, but not so much on the field.

Gilmore still takes the field, for practices and games, offering advice and throwing balls to a team of 20-somethings.

At games, he can often be seen with his sunglasses on in his No. 14 jersey standing at the corner of the dugout, leg propped up on a step, watching the game.

It’s hard to know what he thinks, as his face doesn’t reveal much.

During an April practice, Gilley stands on the field at Springs Brooks Stadium with his arms crossed, sunglasses on, watching the players take swings during batting practice. There’s an occasional nod and advice.

He walks up and pats one player on the back, puts his arm around him and talks low in his ear. Gilley walks to where the pitchers are using towels to perfect their throw. “Increase that spin,” Gilley says, while demonstrating. “There you go.”

Satisfied, he walks back to the batters.

It’s the day before CCU’s home game on April 19, 2024.

Batters are getting special attention because they will be facing two left-handed pitchers at this game.

Gilmore is left-handed. In fact, he’s the only left-handed pitcher on staff.

Gilmore estimates he throws out 500 pitches for his batters so they can get the practice. But he doesn’t mind, calling it “my hour of peace.” No one is calling, “I just go out there and throw.”

It’s a challenge dealing with a whole field of 19-year-olds and twentysomethings.

“There are days when you’re like, damn, man, can retirement get here any faster?” Gilley said. “(But) as much as the winning games is important, five, 10 years down the road, you forget about the wins and the losses to a certain degree, and it’s about what did I take away that can serve me for the rest of my life.”

Gilley’s program has pumped out such major leaguers as Payton Eeles with the Minnesota Twins, Roberto Hernandez with the Chicago White Sox and GK Young who played with the San Diego Padres.

Young, a Conway native, grew up watching CCU.

“I was one of the fortunate ones to watch him build the program. I watched how it evolved,” Young said. “My goal, dream, was to play there.”

Drafted to the Padres his junior year, Young described Gilley as a “loving guy” but “a very relentless guy. He hates to lose.”

“He could be tough love,” Young said. “He knew how to tear you down, but he knew how to build you right back up.”

Now a father to a newborn daughter and a business owner, Young credits Gilley for helping him, and other players, mature on the field.

“(To know) you’ll never see 1-4 on the field (again) ... that hits you pretty hard,” Young said.

Former CCU pitcher Bobby Holmes too reflects on his time playing for Gilley.

Both he and Young were part of the 2016 NCAA championship team.

Holmes suffered through Tommy John during that time, eventually having to have reconstructive surgery to repair a torn ligament in his elbow two weeks before the end of the 2017 season. Holmes remembers at a game during the second or third week of the 2017 season that Gilley told him he was lollygagging and “it was the biggest embarrassment he had ever seen.”

“He was right,” Holmes said. “I apologized to him. I never took it personally and took it as constructive. At the end of day, he was just trying to make it better.”

Holmes said it was evident that Gilmore cared about him “on a deeper level than just a pitcher that went out there.”

“(I) view him as a father figure,” he said. “My father passed away when I was very young. All those coaches at the time, I felt like I was a son of theirs.”

Holmes gets emotional talking about his time with CCU and that 2016 championship.

“It was never about us,” he said, “this was for Gary Gimore. We wanted to get to Omaha, we wanted to see his face as we walked through the TD Ameritrade Park. (And) that’s what we did.”

‘I ain’t got nothing to be scared of’

Faith plays a big part in Gilmore’s life. He doesn’t hide it, often using it to guide his coaching and the players.

He can often be seen praying in the dugout.

“I never asked God to win a game,” Gilmore said. “(I pray) No. 1, to keep us healthy, and No. 2, can you allow us to honor you by playing the best we can play.”

Openly expressing one’s faith has not always been accepted in the sports world. Gilmore has been told that he can’t pray. But all that changed after he took advice from another coach to “just do it.”

“It’s changed my life as a coach being willing to pray with (the players) and talk about faith and be able to throw a scripture out there that relates to something we’re doing as a group of people.”

He never pushes his faith on anyone. Instead, taking the approach that “if it applies to you, use it,” Gilmore said.

Gilmore even has a local chaplain come in about two to three times a week to do devotionals with players who want to participate.

It is difficult for Gilmore to get to church during the baseball season, as he is often at a game on Sundays. This is not unlike many coaches Gilmore knows.

He discovered about 24 years ago a group that includes Major League baseball scouts and college and pro baseball coaches who gather every Monday for a devotional and discussion of the trials and tribulations of life and sports.

Lately, he has leaned on the group to offer support during his battle with cancer.

“That has made a huge difference for me because of all those connections. All the prayers,” Gilmore said. “There have been times, when I just felt like, damn, man. God, through these people, just lifted me completely up off the ground. … I ain’t got nothing to be scared of.”

The weekly devotion is led by Mike Linch, senior pastor at NorthStar Church in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Those who attend, which is about 400 people, do so by invitation of another, Linch said.

Linch played college baseball at Liberty College and understands the coaches’ struggles with faith. “We don’t get to go to church on Sundays,” he said. “We’re always on the road, we’re always in the bleachers.”

The weekly devotion, whether it’s in a hotel room, locker room or office, allows them to go to Bible study and take what they learn and “apply it to the world they live in,” Linch said.

“They’re in there with guys just like them,” he said. “That baseball world is really, really small.”

Gilmore has handled his cancer journey with honor and dignity, Linch said. “We’ve had other guys who go through it, and he’s the first one to call them and say, ‘I’ve been through it.’”

“It’s huge. They feel very alone. What they find out is, I’m not alone,” Linch said. “There’s a lot of guys out there like me, and they’re trying to make a difference and they don’t know how.

“The reality at the end of the day is you’ll be remembered for your wins and losses, but your legacy will really be what lives you changed.”

Finding that next open door

Gilmore is looking for the next open door. Now that his time at CCU has come to a close, it could be said that he is at the top of the first inning regarding what he’ll do next.

“I truly, honestly believe that God has more things for me to do that I have yet to get done, and it ain’t gonna be out here,” he said pointing to the ball field. “There’s a thing or two I want to do in the world before the Lord is done with me.”

The USA Baseball announced in June that Gilmore will be manager of the Collegiate National Team Summer League Tour roster.

But what Gilmore really wants to do is use his cancer to help others, particularly children who are faced with the disease.

He plans to use his longtime baseball connections to create a national children’s cancer day to raise awareness of childhood cancer and to raise money for research to help them beat it.

“It’s one thing for a 66-year-old man who was far blessed than he should have been, it’s another thing to see kids my grandson’s age,” battling cancer, Gilmore said.

For now, Gilmore said he feels like he is on an extended vacation. He’s been able to take back some of that time he had to give up over the years, recently spending a night with his oldest grandchild and wife eating pizza and watching a movie before the grandchild heads off to summer camp for three weeks.

“I’m sure it’s going to hit me at some time,” he said. “I don’t know anything else.”

He also knows that one day he’ll be out and about and “Red Dirt Road” by Brooks & Dunn will start playing and the tears will well up, “and I’ll probably break down.”