Within 24 hours of Tennessee prevailing at last year’s College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, to claim the school’s first baseball national championship, Volunteers coach Tony Vitello was flooded with congratulatory calls and texts.
When Vitello looked at his phone and saw that Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn was reaching out, he knew that was one he had to take immediately.
“I remember it because I was shaking the cobwebs out from the night before,” Vitello said Thursday afternoon in a news conference. “We took over that hotel, and it wasn’t like a rowdy celebration, although the police did show up. It was early in the morning, and from my side, it got kind of emotional.
“He was very generous with some of his compliments and was appreciative of some things, and I was, too.”
Tennessee would not be the reigning national champion or residing in its fifth consecutive NCAA tournament super regional were it not for Vitello, and Vitello would not have been hired in Knoxville on June 7, 2017, had it not been for his success as an assistant with Van Horn’s Razorbacks during the 2014-17 seasons.