Coaches are bolting for the pros. The money is clean, the rules are absolute, and you don’t have to babysit 18-year-olds haggling over Porsches.
Enter Tony Vitello, the Tennessee madman who turned the Vols into a powerhouse.
On October 22, the San Francisco Giants yanked him from Knoxville to become their manager. He is the first college coach to make that leap in modern MLB history without prior pro coaching experience.
Vitello, fresh off a national title and a $3 million college salary, now stares down big-league pressure.
Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey stated:
“Throughout our search, Tony’s leadership, competitiveness, and commitment to developing players stood out… We need that energy and direction.”
Vitello is approaching the jump with what he calls “brutal honesty.”
“I don’t know what I don’t know. I’m ready to get punched in the mouth and figure it out.”
But Vitello isn’t fleeing alone. Just yesterday, news dropped that Frank Anderson, Tennessee’s veteran pitching coach, will join Vitello in San Francisco. Anderson, 66, informed university administrators of his departure on November 19.
He leaves behind the NIL life for a league where the mandate is simple: win.
Are there more? CBS Sports has floated names like Florida State’s Link Jarrett and Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin as potential jumpers. They stuck—for now.
But with NIL turning recruiting into an auction house, don’t bet against more departures.
As one anonymous SEC coach told The Athletic:
“NIL is great for the stars, but it’s killing the soul.”
It takes Practice.
6 comments
Imagine people being paid their worth being considered a bad thing. Brainwashed lol
Go Giants!
I don’t follow college sports so I don’t fully understand the NIL issue. Can someone give me the tldr?
Anyone who opposes the NIL isn’t a serious person. Emotional morons.
Are college baseball players getting a lot of NIL money?
NIL is absolutely the right thing to do but the existing structures as they are, simply aren’t up to the chaos this has all brought. Things will normalise eventually into what is meant to be but I cannot imagine the surprise pressure of keeping a team consistent with all of the various transfers on top of all of the previous academic pressures and restrictions a coach has to deal with on the college level.
It’s almost like maybe these schools need a role of a GM with to help deal with the comings and goings and maybe that will make a difference