FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
CONWAY – Matt Schilling, who played at Coastal Carolina from 1993-94 and coached the Chants from 1995-00, has returned to his alma mater to serve as a volunteer assistant baseball coach, head coach Gary Gilmore announced. He will coach the infielders, be the first base coach and work with the hitters. Schilling will also serve as director of Chanticleer Baseball Camps.
Schilling has spent the past 12 years as the senior director of on-field instruction at the Baseball Factory in Columbia, Md., which is one of the – if not the – premier recruiting services in the country. In his stint with the Baseball Factory, Schilling served three years as an associate scout with the Atlanta Braves, working under current Kansas City Royals Assistant General Manager J.J Picollo. At the Baseball Factory he worked one-on-one with many future college and professional players including Giants infielder Manny Burriss. He also worked, organized and ran various Baseball Factory events that featured future big leaguers David Wright, B.J. Upton, Gavin Floyd, Delmon Young, Will Rhymes, Chris Perez and Derek Holland, among others.
While at Coastal, he played under Head Coach John Vrooman, leading the team in hitting in both the 1993 (.331) and ’94 (.356) seasons. Schilling earned first team All-Big South honors as a second baseman in 1994 and was a nominee for the Rotary Smith Award, which goes to the nation’s top collegiate player. In 1993, he helped the Chants win the Big South regular season championship.
Schilling was an assistant for Coach Vrooman one season and stayed on for the first four seasons of the Gary Gilmore era. In his final season in Conway, the Chants posted a 43-15 overall mark and went 10-2 in league play to win the Big South regular season title.
In addition to his prowess on the baseball field, Schilling was a member of Paul Banta’s Coastal soccer team that advanced to the quarterfinals of the 1992 NCAA tournament.
Schilling came to Coastal after two years at Mercer (N.J.) Community College, where he was a two-time Junior College All-Region performer in baseball. He also was captain of Mercer’s 1991 national championship soccer team and earned all-region goalkeeping honors in 1990.
A native of Hightstown, N.J., Schilling received his bachelor’s degree from Coastal Carolina in history in 1994. He and his wife Colleen reside in Myrtle Beach with their three children: sons TJ (12) and Brayden (4) and daughter Camden (6).
