Tony Vitello addresses rampant issues with tampering in college sports

New San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello addressed the rampant issues with tampering in college sports when speaking on Bussin’ With The Boys. The former Tennessee head coach stunned a lot of baseball people last month when he left the top tier collegiate job for Major League Baseball, seemingly out of nowhere.

But it might come at a good time, considering Vitello already won a College World Series. Not to mention the issues he sees with the transfer portal and NIL in college athletics.

“(Tampering is) a word that gets thrown out a lot, you know,” Vitello said. “I think what the actual definition of that needs to be put out there. And I think, you know, again, someone will say I did this or that, but I think pretty staunch penalties against that would be wise. But there’s always back channeling and stuff when agents are involved. And again, they’ve got a job to do when agents are involved, and they can technically be a middleman or a third party, it throws everything out of whack a little bit.”

College football recently went down to one date for the transfer portal floodgates to open. Vitello said that’s not as much of an issue in college baseball, but it could still be one based on their postseason calendar.

“Moving the portal dates, I don’t know that it affected our deal too much, because so many of these conversations start before they start, you know,” Vitello said. “So our deal does start, you know, I think in the middle of regionals, and it creates a bit of a mess, and now you’re trying to win a regional and recruit a kid, or a kid’s trying to win a regional, but he’s already, you know, got one foot out the door. 

“So I think it’s kind of the nature of the beast. A lot of this stuff starts before it actually happens. And I don’t know how you safeguard or put up, you know, rails against that, but that’s why they’re smarter people than I in higher paid positions.” 

Vitello took over as coach of the Vols in 2018, quickly turning them into a perennial contender during his eight seasons at the helm. Now he gets his shot in the major leagues as he’ll attempt to turn around a San Francisco team that has missed the playoffs for four straight seasons.

Vitello leaves Tennessee with an overall record of 341-131, including a 125-85 mark in conference play. He also won two regular season SEC titles, one SEC Tournament title and led them to three appearances in the College World Series, including a title in 2024.