Tony Vitello makes strong statement about Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn after leaving Tennessee for MLB
Tony Vitello recently stepped down as the head coach of the Tennessee Vols to become the new manager of the San Francisco Giants.
Tony Vitello stepped down as the head coach of the Tennessee Vols last month to take over as the new manager of the San Francisco Giants.
Vitello is the first college coach to transition directly to an MLB manager’s role without prior experience in either minor league or MLB baseball as a player or coach.
While Vitello may not have any MLB experience as a player or coach, he has over 20 years of experience as a collegiate coach, having spent time at Missouri, TCU, and Arkansas as an assistant coach before landing the head coaching job at Tennessee in 2017.
Tony Vitello makes strong statement about Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn
Vitello joined the Off the Rail podcast this week (hosted by former MLB players Jayson Werth and Shawn Kelley), and he was asked who he thinks the best college baseball coach is right now.
The one caveat was that Vitello couldn’t name Josh Elander, a longtime Tennessee assistant who was promoted to head coach late last month.
Vitello went with Dave Van Horn, whom he worked under at Arkansas, as his answer.
“Dave Van Horn’s the best ball coach,” said Vitello. “I think there’s some guys out there, and especially nowadays….everyone wants to be well rounded. So there’s guys that are a little more in the CEO category, there’s a couple guys that are really good recruiters that, if they were up in New York selling stocks, they’d be millionaires, if not billionaires.
“But if you’re just talking ball coach, there’s a couple of others that are impressive, [but] it’s always been Coach Van Horn. And he was really good to work for. We had our moments, but he’ll go down as a legend, and as a first ballot Hall of Famer at the college ranks.”
Vitello went on to praise SEC fans for their passion.
“The fun thing about the SEC — and now obviously my loyalty is to Tennessee, and I loved my time at Arkansas — but now I can sit back and admire this conference even more,” said Vitello. “You guys have come to a couple of football games. The fans are what make the league, and they will terrorize you if you’re the opponent. But it’s beautiful. It’s a really special thing to be a part of.”
Vitello and Van Horn are both incredibly competitive coaches. As a result, they’ve butted heads on the diamond a couple of times, but there’s clearly a huge amount of respect between the two.
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