Zane Denton, Drew Beam assess how Tony Vitello has grown through 2023 season

The 2023 season has been a big one in the career of Tony Vitello. After Tennessee had a historic 2022 campaign that ended prematurely in the Super Regional round, the Volunteers had a much more up-and-down season this year.

But the team managed to put it all together here down the final stretch of the season to make the College World Series.

Drew Beam and Zane Denton praised Vitello after the win over Southern Miss in Game 3 of the Hattiesburg Super Regional to reach the College World Series for his job building a team culture.

“He’s more than a coach for us,” Beam said. “He’s a friend to us. He’s an adult figure to us. He’s always there for us, always having fun with us. You can talk to him about anything,. He creates a good atmosphere to be in and that’s what guys love to come to Tennessee and play in. Just having him around the field, having him cuttin’ up with us, it makes it fun to play. There’s a reason we all play baseball it’s because we had fun playing it when we were little and we just love to play it. So playing for a coach who loves it just as much as you do, it just makes it that much more enjoyable.”

This season is Vitello’s sixth year leading the program after spending the previous decade and a half as an assistant coach at Missouri, TCU and Arkansas.

Tennessee is now making its second appearance in Omaha during that time. The Volunteers made the 2021 College World Series but lost their first two games to be eliminated earlier than they would have liked.

Vitello has a 234–97 record as head coach of Tennessee with one conference regular season title and one conference tournament title. The Volunteers have reached the NCAA Tournament in four of his six seasons. Prior to Vitello’s arrival, Tennessee had not made the NCAA Tournament or College World Series since 2005.

Denton transferred to the program from Alabama over the past offseason, and the third baseman said that playing against Vitello had made him want to play for him.

“He’s been awesome,” Denton said. “He’s one of the reasons I came here. I wanted to play for him…Just how he teaches us life lessons along with baseball. But he also gives us a lot of freedom to take ownership of our team and do what we want to.”