Tennessee coach Tony Vitello on team chemistry and 'babysitter' role
After beating Missouri on Sunday, Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello spoke about his team’s chemistry and his growing role as their leader. The Volunteers are currently on a 23 game win streak, with a 31-1 record on the season and a perfect 12-0 start to conference play against SEC opponents. As the current no. 1 team in the country, Tennessee also leads the nation in home runs and earned runs allowed.
Tony Vitello on Tennessee’s success
After another win, this time at home against the Missouri Tigers, Vitello was interviewed by the SEC Network crew about how their “ridiculous” season has gone so far. Vitello was asked if he’d had a moment to process just how dominant they have been to begin the year.
“[I] have not,” joked Vitello. “You used the word ridiculous, and we’ve got a ridiculous group in a lot of different ways. They need more taming down than anything, so I’ve kinda turned from coach into babysitter, but they’re very fun to be around. I don’t have any one thing I can script out, but those guys are teammates. So that’s kinda the way I approach it.
“And I’m not trying to give the cliché answer or whatever, but we’ve got some assistant coaches that spend a ton of time around our kids. Really the only one who had a family at home is Coach [Josh] Elander — now has a baby daughter that’s gorgeous. But otherwise we’ve got a bunch of single guys or empty nesters and we’ve got nothing better to do except hang out up at the facility. And I think our guys appreciate that everyone is willing to spend time with them and has their back.”
Vitello was then asked about an incident that occurred against Vanderbilt in their important series earlier in the month. Jordan Beck his a solo home run for the first score of the game, only to have the home run waved off as umpires inspected his bat after the hit. The umpires declared the bat was illegal due to not having an NCAA-approval sticker that indicates the bat was appropriately inspected.
Vitello was furious at the time, but the SEC Network crew noted that he handled the situation with humor after the game and asked how he managed to approach a tense situation so calmly.
“I was following the lead we had with our guys,” said Vitello. “I’ve been in some big games and ones where, the perfect thing to say to the average human being — to say is ‘what if we lose this game by one run?’ Because it was a home run. And that’s human nature to think that. But I didn’t get that vibe out of our guys at all.
“And they also weren’t over the top and angry at the other team. They had a little bit more of a chip on their shoulder after that. But they handled it very well and so I kinda followed suit. They gave me comfort in that situation just like they have in others during this year.”