First-year Coastal Carolina baseball coach Kevin Schnall called Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan a bully and disrespectful for his expletive-filled rant directed at site administrators before an elimination game at the NCAA Conway Regional.
O’Sullivan was upset about the start time of his team’s Sunday elimination game against East Carolina being pushed back an hour. East Carolina had played a game Saturday that ended at midnight.
O’Sullivan declined to comment on the confrontation after his team’s 11-4 loss to the Pirates. Asked if he wanted to publicly apologize, he said, “I handled it properly, you know, at the end of the game, yes.”
O’Sullivan reversed course Monday following a meeting with athletic director Scott Stricklin.
“Prior to yesterday’s NCAA Tournament game against East Carolina, I let my emotions get the best of me and channeled that energy in a way I should not have,” O’Sullivan said in a statement. “I want to sincerely apologize for my actions and behavior to the entire NCAA Regional field of Coastal Carolina, East Carolina and Fairfield, the NCAA — including site representatives Rick French and Mark Scalf — as well as all of Gator Nation.
“I did not represent the University of Florida to the appropriate standard yesterday and take full responsibility for that.”
Schnall, whose team eliminated the Pirates with a 1-0 win Sunday night, said he felt compelled to “stand up for what’s right” and comment on O’Sullivan.
“What transpired this morning on our field, another coach disrespected our associate AD, who works as hard as anybody in our entire program, he disrespected our field crew, who are the salt of the earth. These guys would do anything for our program,” Schnall said. “It’s not OK, and this needs to be brought up.”
Schnall said O’Sullivan’s tirade, circulated widely on social media, was disrespectful and unacceptable.
“This is a national champion coach who thinks he can come in here and try to bully people around,” Schnall said. “Disappointed. Disappointed somebody that a lot of coaches look up to, for him to act that way.”
Asked about O’Sullivan, East Carolina coach Cliff Godwin said, “It wasn’t just directed at us. It was directed at everybody. Whatever, man. We won. We get to play again, so that’s all that matters.”
Coastal Carolina, the No. 13 national seed, will play No. 4 Auburn in a best-of-three super regional this week.
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