Video game: Roman Kimball’s long journey to South Carolina plays out on YouTube

When Roman Kimball pitched for the first time in roughly 18 months, it was filmed. There was no way that moment wasn’t getting recorded, he had to share it.

The redshirt sophomore pitcher documented his entire recovery process from Tommy John surgery on his YouTube channel, sharing an inside look of what his life looks like at South Carolina.

In white and yellow letters, Kimball shared a message on his latest video posted on Feb. 13: “Saturday, January 19. Rehab Complete!!!”

“We’re watching the Roman Kimball vlog,” teammate Chris Veach said in the video, “But instead of P.O.V. this year, it’s F.O.V., field of view. Because we’re gonna watch him pitch.”

Kimball’s highly anticipated USC debut came Sunday afternoon against Miami (Ohio). He struck out five batters and walked three in two innings of work. The 20-year-old missed all of last season recovering from the surgery he had in fall 2022.

Before he stood on the mound at Founders Park, he was already well-known by the fans who fill the seats. His YouTube channel, Roman Kimball Vlogs, gave Gamecocks fans an inside look at the pitcher, USC’s baseball program and an unexpected perspective of last season.

“Roman came to me last year and said, ‘Coach, I’m not going to be able to pitch, I want to dive into something that might help us. Here’s what I’d like to do,’ ” head coach Mark Kingston said, “I said, ‘Is it gonna make us look good? Is it gonna give everybody a behind the scenes look at how we really do things?’ ”

Kimball’s vlogs were a hobby he started in high school, playing at P27 Academy. Originally meant to be a team vlog, Kimball picking up a camera was a way to pass the time in a less-than-interesting year during the COVID-19 pandemic. His teammates eventually decreased their participation, and it became the Kimball’s by graduation.

He considered using TikTok instead of YouTube originally. The idea of short videos was tempting, but Kimball knew it’d be much harder to balance a successful TikTok account than a YouTube channel. The demand for content is much higher on the app, and frankly, Kimball wasn’t too sure how TikTok would work.

YouTube channel it was.

“When you’re a kid, you’d always want to have your own YouTube channel,” Kimball said. “But I felt like this was kind of a good opportunity for me to just try to actually get into that.”

He still occasionally posts on TikTok, but it’s not to the extent of his YouTube channel.

Kimball is a mass communications major at South Carolina because he enjoys the process of creating, editing and sharing his videos so much. He’s amassed over 12,000 followers, posting new content about once a week.

“Obviously I want to play baseball for as long as I can,” Kimball said. “But you know if the time comes, I’d love to be able to do something. Whether it be social media work or filming content for a sports team or taking pictures or doing something in the media side of things. I feel like that’d be a really cool job.”

It’s like a public diary. Kimball has shared the ups and downs of his collegiate career, his College World Series trip in 2022 with Notre Dame, announcing his Tommy John surgery and every step after that.

During those 18 months recovering from surgery, the channel helped Kimball remain positive. There’s a lot of repetition during that long-term recovery, and it was his first major injury. Getting up early for treatments, he worked through physical therapy exercises twice a day.

“It definitely becomes very monotonous,” Kimball said. “There’s days where you wake up and you’re just like, man, like I really don’t want to have to go to rehab today. I just wish I could go out there and compete with everybody.”

Then he’d watch his teammates play the game he was dying to play again. Sure, Kimball enjoyed watching the Gamecocks succeed both individually and as a team, but he was experiencing his first year at a new university and couldn’t play.

Kimball started picking the brain of James Motter, a former USC Athletics undergraduate assistant as a student intern. Motter helped lead social media coverage of the baseball program, and helped answer Kimball’s questions about what equipment to use, how to get a specific shot and what it’s like to do social media for a baseball team.

Motter had seen Kimball vlog during a MLB Draft Combine while he worked as an intern for USA Baseball, not knowing they’d cross paths again at South Carolina.

“I saw him walking across the dugout with this little blog camera and I said, ‘Oh, that’s really cool,’ ” Motter said. “I don’t think we did meet each other, which I think is funny. I think I found his video on YouTube and I’m like, that’s me in the back. He could see me kind of looking as he’s doing the vlog.”

Kimball slowly got his teammates comfortable in front of the camera, asking them questions and showing different team building adventures the Gamecocks went on during the offseason. He included highlights from different series throughout the season, including games against Clemson and LSU, the entire SEC tournament and the Super Regional finals.

Some of USC’s assistant coaches were involved when Kimball showed different conversations he had during bullpen practices. Kingston had fun with it too, popping his head in while Kimball was filming from the dugout.

“Coach Kingston loves to be on the camera,” Kimball said. “He’ll pop on there every once in a while but he’s all for it. He’s like, ‘Just be yourself.’ ”

Motter and USC’s social team weren’t always able to make it to every series, and Kimball was usually there filming. It was a perfect yet completely unintentional combination: South Carolina still had someone showing off the program.

“It is beneficial for the program,” Motter said. “It does help us in the long run to sort of have that player-led content out there in the world.”

Kimball will be a key piece of South Carolina’s season, both with his skills behind the camera and his talents on the mound. The Gamecocks were just two wins away from Kimball’s second trip to Omaha for the College World Series, falling in the Super Regionals to eventual NCAA runner-up, Florida.

He’s expected to continue working his way back after missing fall baseball, and emerge as a consistent starter throughout SEC play this season. Kimball will have a lot on his plate, but he doesn’t plan on loosening up on his content schedule.

But the best time of year for Kimball to dive into his channel has been during the breaks. Specifically, the summer.

“It’ll be busy during the season, but the best time of the year is when school’s finished and then you’ve got so much more free time,” he said. “So once school’s over, that’s the best time for me for making content because I have a lot more time on my hands and I can really, you know, dive deeper into the YouTube side of things off the field.”

Kimball either holds the camera himself or has a stand for it whenever he’s filming at Founders Park. His teammates held the camera while he pitched in his first scrimmage in January, they’ll keep holding the camera for him during the season.

The videos are his way of putting himself out there, documentary style, while creatinghis own time capsule. It’s a way he canlook back on his baseball career, revisiting the memories whenever he wants.

The moment of returning to baseball 18 months later will likely be one of the most watched.

“When I’m 40 years old and sitting at home, I can just go back and watch all that stuff and be like man, I had such a fun time at the University of South Carolina,” Kimball said. “And to be able to create those memories and film everything and be able to get those memories on an SD card, it’s pretty amazing.”