Everything Danny White Said Following Tony Vitello Accepting Giants Manager Opening

The Tennessee Vols athletic director, Danny White, spoke with the media following the Vols losing their head baseball coach to the San Francisco Giants. Here is what he had to say when speaking to the media.

Danny White's Opening Statement

"Congratulations to Tony. This is something that has never been accomplished before. I think it's a testament to. Obviously Tony, but anybody who has every played for him, coached for him, our fans who have supported the program. We've had an unprecedented run of success over the last four-to-five years and what he's built is absolutely phenomenal. I was looking at the numbers. When Tony first got here our budget was $3,500,000, it's now $14,000,000 today. We have the top budget in college baseball, we're building a $109,000,000 stadium, we're as aggressive as anybody in the country when it comes to NIL rev share. I think we have a top-three, maybe the best baseball job in America. My focus is to make sure we are managing this transition in a judicious way. The players are No. 1 priority right now. I will be visiting with them later today, as I always do embarking on a search. I will be letting them know that I have asked Frank Anderson to serve as our interim head coach. The terminology I used with Frank is 'I need a shepherd right now. I need a day-to-day leader.' His response was 'not that long ago I was one of the fiery baseball coaches in the country and you're asking me to be a shepherd.' I said 'coach that's exactly what I am asking you to do.' I'm asking Josh Elander to be a candidate, and we are going to conduct a national search, and expect a ton of interest, because of what Tony and his staff and our fanbase has built here. It's a very attractive position. obviously, a very unique time of the year. I'm going to work as fast as I can, and get through this process, and eliminate the uncertainty that our players are feeling right now, as quicky as possible, but we have a lot of talent here and expect to be a competitive baseball team this spring So, I think that's what I wanted to address today, Jason did I leave anything out in terms of analytics? Meeting with the team later, as I always do. Ask them to vote on a leadership group. I will meet with that group more in-depth tomorrow. I want them to have a voice in this process, and we will get started on our search as quickly as we possiblly can. So, with that I will open up to any questions. I know there's a lot out there, it's been a unique process in terms of how public it's been. There's been a whole lot of rumor mill going on, so I want y'all to ask me anything you want. I think you'll enjoy maybe some facts. Go ahead."

Danny White on His Relationship With Tony Vitello

"Yeah I mean, no different than any of our coaches. I think I have a great relationship with Tony. I don't work as closely with him as our sports administrator does. In this case, it's Tyler Johnson for the majority of his time here. But we do that, that's kind of how we're structured. But I do appreciate, obviously, what Tony built for our baseball program. But also, we also saw how invested he was to our athletic department and showing up at games and supported our teams. And in terms of more recently, he's been proactive. I mean, this thing goes back a few weeks, and he's been good about it, and I appreciate how he's been proactive in keeping me in the loop and informing me every step of the way."

Danny White on Rumors About Kim Caldwell

"Yeah, sure. First I think we all should ask anybody that's participated, where did that rumor come from? Did anybody report that in here (media room)? So who reported it? Somebody had to make up something that's not true for it to become a rumor, right? So I think we should all collectively apologize to Kim Caldwell and our women's basketball program, because that's factually incorrect. Never happened. Our rev share numbers are consistent with the house settlement. Five percent for women's basketball, 15% for men's basketball, 75% for football, and five percent for other. With that other budget, which is $900,000, we distributed $750,000 to our baseball program. That is far from what we do for baseball, or for any sport. Like all the most competitive programs in the country, we participated in front-loading last spring. Baseball was a beneficiary of that. We are supporting baseball, I think, well, I know, at a higher level than anybody in America. We are full scholarships in baseball, all 34 spots. We were one of the first schools to sprint to that. I think we were the only school in the country that's also doing cost of attendance on top of that. That was about a $1,200,000 new investment this year that a sport like women's basketball wouldn't have gotten. And we do more with rev share, and with NIL packages for baseball on top of their rev share. So, I know what the competitive space is in the SEC and across the country, and I know our baseball program is extremely well equipped. Otherwise, we wouldn't be recruiting at the level we are."

Danny White on Choosing Frank Anderson Over Josh Elander

"Yeah, a combination of factors. Frank's obviously been a head coach, but probably more importantly, as quickly as I'd like to move, I'd like Josh to build focus on his candidacy. And he's kind of in the middle of all this, too. Up until this morning, the entire staff didn't know the decision that Tony was going to make. So, he's been focused on recruiting and coaching our players. We have an incoming class. There's a lot going on. And I didn't want to throw this on them now, while also maybe treating an interview as an afterthought. I want to be able to focus on the interview process."

Danny White on If He Communicated With Elander or Anderson This Morning

"I don't make a common practice of becoming chummy with our assistant coaches. I think that there's a change of command that that would be inappropriate. To have social relationships with them. But for the first time last night, I visited with each of them individually and talked about this plan. At that point in time, it was a contingency plan. We didn't know the decision that Tony was going to make, but I've had a chance again to visit with him (Elander) more today and look forward to doing that more as we embark on the search process."

Danny White on Tennessee Baseball Roster Number

"Our roster numbers have all changed with the house settlement post-July 1st, and they're consistent with our scholarship numbers now, which is a great thing for a sport like baseball. We used to be capped at 11.7 scholarships, and now there is no cap. So, we have 34 roster spots and 34 full scholarships. With the first year in the designated student athlete opportunities there's a chance to be somewhat flexible, but once we get out of the period with DSAs there's going to be zero flexibility. So, all of our coaches for all 20 sports were informed of what the roster numbers are over a year ago, and the expectation for all of our head coaches is to meet your roster spots, a part of the job. We have to be compliant with the house settlement, and we also have Title Nine consideration. We have to balance our number of participants on rosters with men versus women across all of our sports. That has to be consistent with the student body across the campus, and then also the scholarship allocation from a grant and aid perspective. Roster numbers are important for every sport, but I think they're an easy thing to manage, we just need our coaches to hit their numbers."

Danny White on The Unique Time for The Search and If Being a Top-Three Job Makes it Easier

"We're going to find out. I'm going into this with open eyes. Like I've said to you guys before, relative to coaching searches, interviews matter. I won't ultimately know what the right decision is until I go through that process and get an opportunity to compare candidates against each other, and to hear from our student athletes, all that stuff. But I expect that there's, even though it's a difficult time of year, I expect that there's going to be a ton of interest, because of what Tony's built here, what we've all collectively built here, our players, our fans, our donors, everybody contributing to that awesome new facility that will open up this season."

Danny White on What He is Specifically Looking For in the Coaching Hire

"Nothing specific. The first data point for me will be hearing more directly from that leadership group of student athletes, what they're experiencing right now. A lot of times, when you go into a coaching search, it's because the team isn't having the kind of success you want to have, so how do we make things better? But we're obviously 18 months removed from a national championship and just lost our coach to the big leagues for the first time in the history of college baseball. So, we have a positive momentum and a good thing going, but I still want to hear their perspective and learn from that, and then go into the process. But, I don't have anything in particular."

If He Wants a "Shepherd" in His Next Coaching Hire

"Not necessarily, I think I use that term because, like right now, the kids need to know who's the head coach. They need that. There's got to be somebody in charge. So, in any kind of coaching transition, I'm always, immediately, we have to have an interim coach. That interim coach might be in that role for four days. It might be a lot longer than that. I don't know. But there's got to be, you've got to fill that void. So that's where the term shepherd came from in my mind."

Danny White on Incentivize Tennessee Players to Stay Rather Than Enter the NCAA Transfer Portal

"I always, in every single transition, encourage the players not to let their emotions get the best of them, focus on their academics, focus on baseball right now. I'll be telling them some of the things I've told you. I'm going to work as fast as I can to try to eliminate that uncertainty for them as quickly as I can, and then I'll be asking them to give the new head coach and coaching staff, however that plays out. In this case, that might be something that's very familiar to them. It might be something that's different. I don't know. But ask them to assess what that looks like, really, for their own best interest. They have a tremendous opportunity here at Tennessee, and like every student-athlete we have here, if they choose to do something different, then that's their decision."

Danny White on Using a Search Firm in This Search

"I'm using Parker Executive Search, who I've used for several coaching searches here. They are already working on a plan on the logistics. I use them to help set up interviews. They don't pick who we interview. I do that. I've been assessing, I'm always assessing the market for all of our sports, but I've been assessing, knowing this was a possibility for a while. "Yeah, I think in every search I try to lean on people I trust in this sport that know more about it than I do. I'll be looking for opportunities to do that here, too."

Danny White on If Vitello Will Take Any of His Staff With Him

"I don't know. Tony and I haven't talked about that. We spoke earlier today. I'm not sure that he knows. He's probably trying to figure things out himself. I would venture to guess he probably doesn't know yet. I visited with our entire staff earlier today, and told them that we have every intention of making sure that they're in a good place, and that they need to do what's best for their career. I get that. Whether that's in San Francisco, or here, or somewhere else. Bu,t we're not going to leave anybody out in the cold. This is a staff that's done a lot for this university, and we'll make sure that they're in a good place."

Danny White Explains How This is a Happy Day Not a Sad Day

"I don't know that anybody is happy that Tony Vitello is not our coach anymore. We won a national championship and won a historic amount of games. But I also think that we should be happy for him. This is a decision that he made, that is a pretty phenomenal accomplishment. So, I go back to what I said at the beginning. I don't think this is a sad day. I think this is a proud day. It's a compliment to our program and what's been accomplished here. And it's certainly mostly a compliment to Tony."

Danny White on If He Plans to Have a Permanent Head Coach in Place

"I'm not putting myself in a box with anything right now. This is kind of unprecedented to have a coaching transition this time of year. So, I don't know how this plays out."

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