Missouri baseball alum Tony Vitello is making history.
Vitello, the Tennessee baseball coach for the past eight seasons and a national championship winner, has been named the next manager of the San Francisco Giants, making him the first sitting college head coach to be named the manager of an MLB franchise.
The news was reported by various outlets Wednesday, including the Knoxville News Sentinel and ESPN.
Vitello was an infielder for Missouri from 2000-02 under then-head coach Tim Jamieson, transferring to the Tigers from Division-II Spring Hill College. He is a St. Louis native and attended high school at De Smet.
After graduating, Vitello spent a season as a coach with the Salinas Packers in a summer collegiate baseball league before making the move back to Columbia to become an assistant coach under Jamieson in 2003.
Vitello spent eight seasons with Mizzou as an assistant. He also made stops at Arkansas and TCU before getting his first head coaching opportunity at Tennessee in 2018.
As a head coach, Vitello compiled a 341-131 record in Knoxville, Tennessee, and won a national title in 2024. He won two SEC Tournament titles and made five NCAA Regional appearances.
While an assistant at Arkansas in 2016, Vitello was viewed as a candidate and reportedly interviewed for the job to replace Jamieson as Mizzou’s head coach. The job instead went to Steve Bieser, who was fired after the 2023 season and replaced by current MU head coach Kerrick Jackson.
No sitting college head coach has ever made the direct move to MLB manager.
The San Francisco Giants fired manager Bob Melvin after an 81-81 season and two years at the helm.