Tennessee Baseball Set to Interview New Coaching Candidate on Friday

The Tennessee Volunteers are one of the many teams that have been looking for a new coach of some sort. However, they are one of the minority teams looking for a baseball coach.

The Tennessee Vols have been on the coaching search since Wednesday, when their head baseball coach took the San Francisco Giants job. He became the first college coach with zero past MLB experience to jump directly to a manager spot in the MLB He is also set to be the highest-paid first-year manager of all time with a contract of $10,500,000 across a total of three seasons.

Tennessee is interviewing a new coaching candidate on Friday (according to Mike Wilson), as the coach they are going after is one of the many coaches who have seen some success this past season. That coach is Coastal Carolina's head baseball coach, Kevin Schnall. Schnall recently received an extension that will keep him as Coastal's head baseball coach through the 2030 season; however, the Vols could get him away from this contract with some sort of buyout if that is the case.

Schnall led his team to the College World Series last year. He wasn't victorious, but he still made a run, which helped land him in the conversation as one of the coaches there.

This was released the same day that the media quotes from Vitello were released. He addressed the Tennessee media by talking about the decision he made. Here is some of what he had to say.

Tony Vitello on Accepting the Job

“By now, you all know I officially accepted a position to babysit Drew Gilbert. Normally I don’t read to y’all, but hopefully I can just get through some notes without any tears. There’s been a lot. Had to watch some Leanne Morgan to stop here and there a few different times. But here we are. I just wanted to kind of get some things out there and not have any regrets, so that’s why I wrote some notes down. First off, just people saying bye and everything like that, I’m not going anywhere. So real estate people quit texting me. I’ll figure out what I want to do. But whether it’s football games, basketball games, supporting these guys in some form or fashion, I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know if this will get me in trouble, but in my mind, a goal is to come back to Tennessee in some capacity. Whether it’s part-time living or some other job way down the road or maybe I go back to Nashville and become a country singer or something like that. But that’s something that stuck out in my head because obviously I feel like this was a great place for me. A big one for me is just the last practice. If there’s anything valuable out of this or, hopefully, heartfelt — if that is the last time I ever stepped foot on this campus or this field as an employee or as a Vol wearing our orange, I’m just so thankful for the people that showed up. It mattered. It made a difference. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at the moment, but the bottom line is — if they feel like it was a waste of time because they were here to sway me or something like that, it’s not because it will forever be ingrained in my memory. It made what was the last day on the job technically, very, very special. I say this humbly. At one point they started chanting my name and I wanted to go up and address the crowd and I’ll just do it now. The fans, the people who were here, the people that were in the stadium — they don’t need me. They need the players. The players don’t need me. They need the fans. I think we’ve got great players here. We’ve got great players signed up and we have incredible fans. They filled the porches because of the construction, that’s all it would allow. They need to fill the stadium and bring the same energy they brought (to) the last game of the year last year. Our kids need to play to their full potential because it’s pretty dangerous. But that’s one thing I definitely want to get off my chest."

Tony Vitello on Accepting the Job

More Vols News