Rick Barnes calls College World Series win 'extremely special'

Rick Barnes, along with thousands more of the Tennessee faithful, were on hand in Omaha last weekend to see the Volunteers win a first-ever national championship in baseball. And it was a night Barnes won’t soon forget.

Barnes not only got to see the Volunteers hoist a national championship trophy, but with one of his old friends from their days at Texas together on the coaching staff: Frank Anderson. Anderson was part of a Men’s College World Series winning team with the Longhorns in 2002, when Barnes was the head basketball coach there.

Seeing Anderson get to win another ring is just part of what made the night a special one for Barnes and all the Rocky Top faithful.

“It was — honestly being there for the national championship game was extremely special and honestly I’d been there one other time and it was at Texas,” Barnes said. “I told Frank Anderson, ‘We’re 2-for-2.’ Because Frank was the pitching coach at Texas when I was there and he won it that year. And really one of my highlights, with everything that went on, when we were getting ready to leave, I saw Frank sitting in the dugout by himself and it really touched me. He was there, everybody was gone, just sitting on the back of the bench looking back out onto the field and I got so much respect for him.”

Barnes went on to praise head coach Tony Vitello for the way he’s built Tennessee into one of the premiere college baseball programs.

And Barnes added that so much of the success is enabled by the work of those above both him and Vitello from both the leadership in the athletic department and across the university.

“But Tony, what he’s done is really remarkable,” Barnes said. “I keep asking myself, ‘How’s this all come together, it seems quickly, here at the University of Tennessee?’ But I was asked that question yesterday and really it goes back to leadership. We all know that it starts at the top and I say it every time I get a chance to talk about Randy Boyd and Donde Plowman and Danny White, they’re the ones that have set the bar, set the standard and there’s a real synergy about what’s going here within our athletic department and we’re on a big wave right now, we hope to be turning it into a tidal wave.