Florida's Kevin O'Sullivan Apologizes For Cussing Out NCAA Tourney Staff, Coastal Carolina Coach Destroys Him

Tempers reached a boiling point on Sunday for Florida baseball coach Kevin O'Sullivan as his team prepared to face East Carolina in what was an elimination game for both squads. Now, video has been released of the incident that saw O'Sullivan lose his mind over the Gators having to start their game one hour later than planned. 

In this NCAA Tournament, the television networks control when each game will start, due to ESPN having the broadcast rights. But, this decision to push the Gators and Pirates back an hour came after Saturday night's outing between Coastal Carolina and East Carolina ended near midnight. 

So, tournament officials wanted to give East Carolina an additional hour of rest before taking the field on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, it sounds like that message was not relayed to Florida's Kevin O'Sullivan until his team arrived at the park, which seemingly sent the Gators blood pressure through the roof. 

In a video posted to social media on Monday, it shows O'Sullivan berating what looks to be the NCAA Tournament site rep, along with officials from Coastal Carolina, who was the regional host this past weekend. 

As you can tell by the video, the Florida coach was not happy with how the decision to move the game back one hour came about. 

"For what? Because they played late?" Kevin O’Sullivan says in the video. "Big f-cking deal. One hour’s going to make a difference? … This is f-ckiing bullshit."

The outrage really wasn't that big of a deal, if you look at the whole tournament. Games are being pushed back, times are being changed, and this is something teams have to prepare for when the begin the NCAA Tournament. 

UPDATE: Florida's Kevin O'Sullivan released a statement on Monday evening, apologizing for his outbursts towards Coastal Carolina on-site staff members, along with NCAA tourney officials. 

""I let my emotions get the best of me and channeled that energy in a way I should not have," O’Sullivan’s statement read in part. "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, and promise to learn from this experience and be better moving forward. I … am sorry for allowing this instance to get in the way of an otherwise great weekend of postseason baseball."

Also, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin released a statement as well, calling O'Sullivan's actions ‘unacceptable’. 

I think this was more of Kevin O'Sullivan taking the pressure from being in an elimination game out on the folks at Coastal Carolina, but that's just my opinion. The Gators would go on to lose that matchup with East Carolina, with their season coming to an end. 

But, there was one coach that was not even participating in that particular game that took offense to everything that had transpired. 

Coastal Carolina's Kevin Schnall Ripped Kevin O'Sullivan Postgame 

Rightfully so, the Chanticleers head coach was none too pleased to see his own associate athletic director being dressed-down by the Florida head coach. 

Following the win last night that sent them to the Super Regional, Kevin Schnall tore into the legendary Florida coach for his pregame antics. 

"One last thing I have is I have to say this and I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this or not," Kevin Schnall started. "But I believe in standing up for what’s right, and 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. It’s not OK. And this needs to be brought up.

"Absolutely disrespectful. As a coach it’s our job to mentor young kids. And the way he treated the two site reps, the way he treated our associate AD, the way he treated our field crew is absolutely unacceptable. And I’m really, that’s what I’m most disappointed about.

As you can tell, Kevin Schnall did not appreciate Kevin O'Sullivan going at the folks who were just doing their best to put on an NCAA tournament regional. 

Following the Gators loss, O'Sullivan was asked if he wanted to apologize to anyone at Coastal Carolina for the incident. 

"I don’t want to address that right now. I handled it properly," Kevin O’Sullivan said. 

He then followed up by saying it was ‘handled’ following the Gators' loss to East Carolina. Right, like that is going to make things any better. 

This is not the first time O'Sullivan has made a scene at the ballpark, and it certainly won't be the last. Maybe he was in the right regarding the game time being moved back an hour, but there's no reason to berate someone for doing their job. 

Now, Coastal Carolina will head to the Super Regionals of the NCAA Tournament, while Florida's season came to an end on Saturday afternoon. 

I guess karma worked out in this one.