Tennessee Director of Athletics Danny White met with the local media Wednesday afternoon following Tony Vitello’s departure to become the new head coach of the San Fransisco Giants.
White addressed Vitello’s departure, rumors about NIL money going to women’s basketball instead of baseball and much more. Here’s everything White said.
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Opening Statement
“In my mind, this is not a sad day, it’s a proud day. Congratulations to Tony. This is something that’s never been accomplished before. So I think it’s a testament to obviously Tony, but everybody that’s 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. When Tony 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 stadium. We’re as aggressive as anybody in the country in the revenue share and NIL space. I think we have 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.
“Players are our No. 1 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 use with Frank is, 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. 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 and his staff and our fan base and everyone has built here. I think it’s an extremely attractive position. Obviously a little bit unique time of year. I’m going to work as fast as I can to 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 I expect to have an extremely competitive baseball team this spring.
“So that’s, I think, what I wanted to address today … (I’ll) meet 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 searches as quickly as we possibly can.”
On characterizing the relationship he’s had with Tony Vitello, the communication in recent days
“Yeah, I mean, no different than any of our coaches. I think I have a great relationship with Tony. I don’t work as closely with him as our sport administrator does. In this case, it’s Tyler Johnson for the majority of his time here. But we do that, that’s kind of how we’re structured. But I do appreciate, obviously, what Tony built 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. And in terms of more recently, he’s been proactive. I mean, this thing goes back a few weeks, and he’s been good about, and I appreciate how he’s been proactive in keeping me in the loop and informing me every step of the way.”
On rumors about Tennessee baseball NIL funding going to Lady Vols basketball
“Yeah, sure. First, I think we all should anybody that’s participated, where did that rumor come from? Did 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? So I think we should all collectively apologize to Kim Caldwell on our women’s basketball program because that’s factually incorrect. Never happened. Our rev share numbers are consistent with the house settlement. Five percent for women’s basketball, 15% for men’s basketball, 75% for football, five percent for other. With that other budget, 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 were the only school in the country 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. And we do more with rev share and with 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 why make Frank Anderson the interim instead of associate head coach Josh Elander
“Yeah, 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 to build focus on his candidacy. And he’s kind of in the middle of all 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 our players. We have an incoming class. There’s a lot going on. And I didn’t want to throw this on them now while also maybe treating an interview as an afterthought. I want to be able to focus on the interview process.”
On if he had communication with Anderson or Elander before this morning, what his relationship with Elander is like
“I don’t make common practice of becoming chummy with our assistant coaches. I think that there’s a change making a 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 I’ve had a chance again to visit with him more today and look forward to doing that more as we embark on the search process.”
On Tennessee baseball’s roster number compared to competitors
“Our roster numbers have all changed with the house settlement post-July 1, and 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. So we have 34 roster spots and 34 full scholarships. With the first year in the designated student athlete opportunities, there’s a chance to be somewhat flexible, but once we get out of the period with DSAs, 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, and the expectation for all of our head coaches is to meet your roster spots, a part of the job.
We have to be compliant with the house settlement, and we also have Title IX consideration. We have to balance our number of participants on rosters with men versus women across all of our sports. That has to be consistent with the student body across the campus, and then also the scholarship allocation from a 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 the unorthodox coaching search timing, and if it’ll still be easier with Tennessee being a “top three job”
“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 and get an opportunity to compare candidates against each other and 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’s built here, what we’ve all collectively built here, our players, our fans, our donors, everybody contributing to that awesome new facility that will open up this season.”
On if there’s anything specific he’s looking for in this hire
“Nothing specific. The first data point for me will be hearing more directly from that leadership group of student athletes, what they’re 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, but I still want to hear their perspective and learn from that and then go into the process. But I don’t have anything in particular.”
On if he wants a shepherd in the next head coach
“Not necessarily. I think I use that term because, like right now, the kids need to know who’s the head coach. They need that. There’s got to be somebody in charge. So in any kind of coaching transition, I’m always, 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 there’s got to be, you got to fill that void. So that’s where the term shepherd came from in my mind.”
On how he will incentivize current players to stay at Tennessee rather than enter the transfer portal
“I always, in every single transition, encourage the players not to let their emotions get the best of them — 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 to 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 (a chance) 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 interest. 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 he will use a search firm for the coaching search
“I’m using Parker Executive Search, who I’ve used for several coaching searches here. They are already working on a plan on the logistics. I use them to help set up interviews. They don’t pick who we interview. I do that. I’ve been assessing — I’m always assessing the market for all of our sports — but I’ve been assessing, knowing this was a possibility for a while.”
On if there are people he will lean on in the coaching search aside from the search firm:
“Yeah, I think in every search I try to lean on people I trust in this sport that know more about it than I do. I’ll be looking for opportunities to do that here, too.”
On if Vitello will take any of his staff with him to San Francisco:
“I don’t know. Tony and I haven’t talked about that. We spoke earlier today. I’m not sure that he knows. He’s probably trying to figure things out himself. I would venture to guess he probably doesn’t know yet.
“I visited with our entire staff earlier today and told them that we have every intention of making sure that they’re 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. But we’re not going to leave anybody out in the cold. This is a staff that’s done a lot for this university and we’ll make sure that they’re in a good place.”
On his message to Vol fans
“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. But I also think that we should be happy for him. This is a decision that he made that is a pretty phenomenal accomplishment. So I go back to what I said at the beginning. I don’t think this is a sad day. I think this is a proud day. It’s a compliment to our program and what’s been accomplished here. And it’s certainly mostly a compliment to Tony.”
On if he intends to have a permanent head coach in place by opening day in February so there’s not a plan for Frank Anderson to operate as the interim 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.”
