After reports initially surfaced that Tony Vitello was being honed in on for the San Francisco Giants’ job, a rumor began to float around of why. Some believed that the Lady Vols basketball program, sporting a new head coach a year ago in Kim Caldwell (who just signed a monster recruiting class), was taking money away from the baseball team and that this was driving Vitello away.
On Wednesday, the initial reports came to fruition with Vitello officially being named the new manager of the MLB’s Giants. In response, Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White held a press conference. He encouraged any and all questions to be asked as he wanted to set the record straight.
One of the first questions was about this rumor. White shut it down, asked for everyone to apologize to Caldwell and her team and laid out the financial backing of the baseball program.
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“First, I think we all should, anybody that’s participated – where did that come from?,” White said. “Anybody report that in here? So who reported it? Somebody had to make up something that’s not true for it to become a rumor, right? I think we all should collectively apologize to Kim Caldwell and our women’s basketball program because that’s factually incorrect. Never happened. Our rev share numbers are consistent with the house settlement. 5% for women’s basketball, 15% for men’s basketball, 75% for football and 5% for other. With that other bucket, which is 900,000, we distributed 750,000 of it 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 frontloading last spring. Baseball was the 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 county that’s also doing cost of attendance on top of that. That was about a $1.2 million new investment this year that a sport like women’s basketball wouldn’t have gotten. We do more with rev share and with NIL packages, with baseball on top of their rev share. I know what the competitive space is in the SEC and across of the country and I know our baseball program is extremely well equipped.”
With Vitello gone, White has named pitching coach Frank Anderson as the interim. Tennessee will hold a nationwide search for the new skipper in Knoxville, including assistant coach Josh Elander.
There is currently no timetable for when the next full-time coach will be announced.
