Tennessee athletic director Danny White hosted a press conference to address what’s next for Tennessee baseball after Tony Vitello’s departure.
Vitello, who turned the Vols into a national powerhouse over his eight seasons, was announced as the new manager of the San Francisco Giants Oct. 22. White named Frank Anderson as the interim coach while he conducts the coaching search.
Here’s everything White said in his press conference.
Opening statement
“Good afternoon, I appreciate you all coming in on short notice. I don’t have to tell you the news of the day. Our head baseball coach has accepted the manager position at the San Francisco Giants. In my mind this is not a sad day. It’s a proud day. Congratulations to Tony Vitello. This is something that has never been accomplished before, so I think it’s a testament to obviously Tony Vitello, but everybody that has ever played for him, coached for him, our fans that have supported the program. We’ve had an unprecedented run of success the last four or five years and what he has built is absolutely phenomenal. I was looking at the numbers when Tony Vitello first got here, our budget was $3.5 million, it’s $14 million today. We have the top budget in college baseball. We’re building a $109 million dollar stadium. We’re as aggressive as anybody in the country in the revenue share and NIL space. I think we have a top-three, maybe the best baseball job in America, so we need to make sure. My focus is making sure that we’re managing this transition in a judicious way. The players are our number one priority right now, we’ll be visiting with them later today, as I always do embarking on a search. I’ll be letting them know, I’ve asked Frank Anderson to serve as our interim head coach. The terminology I used with Frank Anderson was ‘I need a shepherd right now. I need a day-to-day leader,’ and his response was, ‘not that long ago I was one of the most fiery baseball coaches in the country and you’re asking me to be a shepherd?’ and I said ‘coach, that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.’ I’m asking Josh Elander to be a candidate and we are going to conduct a national search and expect a ton of interest because of what Tony Vitello and his staff and our fan base and everyone has built here. I think it is an extremely attractive positive, obviously a little bit unique time of year. I’m going to work as fast as I can and get through this process and eliminate the uncertainty that our players are feeling right now as quickly as possible. We have a lot of talent here and expect to have an extremely competitive baseball team this spring. So, that’s what I think I wanted to address today. I’m meeting with the team later today as I always do, I’ll ask for them to vote on a leadership group. I’ll meet with that group more in-depth tomorrow. I want them to have a voice in this process, and we’ll get started on our search as quickly as we possibly can. So, with that I’ll open to any questions. I know there’s a lot out there, this has been a unique process in terms of how public it’s been. There’s been a whole lot of rumor mill going on, so I want you all to ask me anything you want. I think you’ll enjoy maybe some facts.”
On his relationship with Coach Vitello and the communication with him throughout this process
“I mean, it’s no different than any of our coaches. I think I have a great relationship with Tony (Vitello). I don’t work as closely with him as our sport administrator does, in this case it’s been Tyler Johnson for the majority of his time here. We do that, that’s kind of how we’re structured, but I do appreciate, obviously, what Tony did for our baseball program but also, we also saw how invested he was to our athletic department and showing up at games and supporting our teams. In terms of more recently, he’s been proactive in keeping me in the loop and informing me every step of the way.”
On the rumor about NIL and revenue sharing allocations across Tennessee’s athletic programs
“First, I think anybody that’s participated, where did that rumor come from? (Did) anybody report on that in here? So, who reported it? Somebody had to make up something that’s not true for it to become a rumor, right? So, I think we should all collectively apologize to Kim Caldwell and our women’s basketball program cause that’s factually incorrect, it never happened. Our revenue share numbers are consistent with the house settlement: five percent for women’s basketball, 15 percent for men’s basketball, 75 percent for football, five percent for others. With that other bucket, which is $900,000, we distributed $750,000 to our baseball program. That is far from what we do for baseball or for any sport. Like all the most competitive programs in the country, we participated in front loading last spring. Baseball was a beneficiary of that. We are supporting baseball, I think, well I know, at a higher level than anybody in America. We are full scholarships in baseball, all 34 spots. We were one of the first schools to sprint to that. I think we’re the only school in the country that’s also doing cost of attendance on top of that. That was about $1.2 million new investment this year that a sport like women’s basketball wouldn’t have gotten and we do more with revenue share and NIL packages for baseball on top of their rev share. So, I know what the competitive space is in the SEC and across the country and I know our baseball program is extremely well equipped, otherwise we wouldn’t be recruiting at the level we are.”
On the decision to name Frank Anderson interim head coach and if he has a timeline for the hiring process
“Combination of factors. Frank’s obviously been a head coach, but probably more importantly, as quickly as I’d like to move, I’d like Josh (Elander) to be able to focus on his candidacy. And he’s kind of in the middle of all of this too. Up until this morning, the entire staff didn’t know the decision that Tony was going to make, so he’s been focused on recruiting and coaching his players. We have an incoming class and there’s a lot going on, so I did not want to throw this on him now while also maybe treating an interview as an afterthought. Want him to be able to focus on the interview process.”
On prior communication with Josh Elander and Frank Anderson and his relationship with Elander
“I don’t make common practice of becoming chummy with our assistant coaches. I think there’s a chain of command that that would be inappropriate to have social relationships with them. But, for the first time last night, I visited with each of them individually and talked about this plan. At that point in time, it was a contingency plan. We didn’t know the decision that Tony was going to make but have had a chance to visit with him more today and look forward to doing that more as we embark on the search process.”
On Tennessee’s roster size with the new roster limits in place
“Our roster numbers have all changed with the house settlement post July 1. They’re consistent with our scholarship numbers now, which is a great thing for a sport like baseball. We used to be capped at 11.7 scholarships and now there is no cap. We have 34 roster spots and 34 full scholarships. With the first year and the designated student athlete opportunities, there’s a chance to be somewhat flexible, but once we get out of the period with (Designated Student Athletes), there’s going to be zero flexibility. So, all of our coaches, for all 20 sports, were informed of what the roster numbers are over a year ago. The expectation for all of our head coaches is to meet your roster spot. It’s a part of the job. We have to be compliant with the house settlement, and we also have Title IX considerations. We have to balance our number of participants on rosters with men versus women across all of our sports. It has to be consistent with our student body across the campus. Also, the scholarship allocation from the grant and aid perspective. Roster numbers are important for every sport, but I think they’re an easy thing to manage. We just need our coaches to hit their numbers.”
On conducting a baseball coaching search in October
“We’re going to find out. I’m going into this with open eyes. Like I’ve said to you guys before, relative to coaching searches – interviews matter. I won’t ultimately know what the right decision is until I go through that process, get an opportunity to compare candidates against each other, hear from our student athletes, all that stuff; but I expect that there’s, even though it’s a difficult time of year, I expect that there’s going to be a ton of interest because of what Tony has built here, what we’ve all collectively built here. Our players, our fans, our donors, everybody contributed to that awesome new facility that’ll open up this season.”
On anything specific he looks for in a candidate
“Nothing specific. The first data point for me will be hearing more directly from that leadership group of the student athletes, what they are experiencing right now. A lot of times, when you go into a coaching search, it’s because the team isn’t having the kind of success you want to have, so how do we make things better? But we’re obviously 18 months removed from a national championship and just lost our coach to the big leagues for the first time in the history of college baseball, so we have a positive momentum and a good thing going. I still want to hear their perspective, learn from that and then go into the process, but I don’t have anything particular in mind.”
On the next coach being a shepherd for the program
“I use that term because, like right now, the kids need to know who is the head coach. There’s got to be somebody in charge, in any kind of coaching transition, I’m always like, immediately, we have to have an interim coach. That interim coach might be in that role for four days; it might be a lot longer than that, I don’t know, but you’ve got to fill that void. That’s where the term shepherd came from in my mind.”
On incentivizing players to stay at Tennessee during a coaching change
“I always, in every single transition, encourage the players not to let their emotions get the best of them and focus on their academics, focus on baseball right now. I’ll be telling them some of the things I’ve told you. I’m going to work as fast as I can to try and eliminate that uncertainty for them as quickly as I can, and then I’ll be asking them to give the new head coach and coaching staff, however that plays out. In this case, that might be something that’s very familiar for them, it might be something that’s different. I don’t know, but ask them to assess what that looks like, really, for their own best interests. They have a tremendous opportunity here at Tennessee, and like every student-athlete we have here, if they choose to do something different, then that’s their decision.”
On if there will be a search firm or someone he leans on to help with the search
“I am using Parker Executive Search who I have used for several coaching searches here. They are already working on a plan. On logistics, I use them to help set up interviews. They don’t pick who we interview. I do that. I have been assessing. I am always assessing the market for all of our sports. I’ve been assessing, knowing this was a possibility for a while. I think in every search I try to lean on people I trust in the sport and know more about it than I do. I’ll be looking for opportunities to do that here too.”
On if Tony Vitello could potentially take some of his current staff with him to San Francisco
“I don’t know. Tony (Vitello) and I haven’t talked about that. We spoke earlier today. I’m not sure he knows. He’s probably trying to figure things out himself. I would venture to guess that he probably doesn’t know yet. I visited with our entire staff earlier today and told them we have every intention of making sure that they are in a good place and that they need to do what’s best for their career – I get that. Whether that’s in San Francisco or here or somewhere else. We’re not going to leave anybody out in the cold. This is a staff that’s done a lot for this university. We’ll make sure they are in a good place.”
On his message to Vol Nation
“I don’t know that anybody is happy that Tony Vitello is not our coach anymore. We won a national championship and won a historic amount of games. I also think that we should be happy for him. The decision he made is a pretty phenomenal accomplishment. I go back to what I said at the beginning. I don’t think this is a sad day. I think it’s a proud day. It’s a complement to our program and what’s been accomplished here. It’s certainly mostly a compliment to Tony.”
On if he intends to make a hire before the 2026 season or if Frank Anderson could act as interim head coach throughout the season
“I’m not putting myself in a box with anything right now. This is kind of unprecedented to have a coaching transition this time of year. So, I don’t know how this plays out.”