FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said he has had his eye on former TCU hitting coach and recruiting coordinator Tony Vitello for years.
After the Razorbacks lost its recruiting coordinator and hitting coach, Todd Butler, to Wichita State, Van Horn did not take long to hire Vitello to replace him.
"I’ve been watching Tony for a long time," Van Horn said. "I remember seeing him out five, six, seven years ago. Everytime I’d go somewhere, he’s there. I’m like, man, this guy is incredible. He was working at Missouri and I just knew if he kept up the pace that he was on at that time in his young coaching career that he was going to be a guy that was in demand as an assistant coach, just because of his recruiting connections."
Having spent years coaching in the Big 12 at both TCU and Missouri, Vitello brings ties to states like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma to Arkansas. He said he had also been familiar with the Natural State from those days and has fellow former University of Missouri coaches that can show help welcome him to the area, like Arkansas assistant basketball coach Matt Zimmerman.
"I am really close to Coach Zimmerman and really have a tremendous amount of respect for the whole basketball staff and how they did it and what they did at Missouri," Vitello said. "I got to see them play a couple of times at College Station and watched them here and I did come to that Auburn football game. "
"Fayetteville really impressed me. I have been a part of programs that competed against Arkansas in recruiting nonstop and you don't really know what Fayetteville is all about until you are here. It's a great place, the ideal college town. And what strikes you the most is Arkansas athletics is a pretty big deal in town. It's the No. 1 show in the state and people have a tremendous amount of loyalty in Arkansas. When you can feel that in the air, you get excited about bringing recruits here. You don't need to paint the picture or give them a sales pitch, you just get them in the environment and you can literally feel it.
"Just walking into this stadium, as a recruiter or call it a college baseball fan, you feel like if you ever go toe-to-toe with this, it's a losing battle every time. So I've joked with a lot of my friends. I got tired of recruiting against Arkansas and feel good about the fact that now I get to wear this color and show kids this stadium and get them all excited about this place."
In addition to knowing aspects of the state, Vitello has also grown up around sports, most specifically baseball, his whole life. His dad, Greg Vitello, has coached for 47 years at DeSmet Jesuit High School.
"He won't go away," Vitello said. "He's finally starting to mention words like retirement, but he's still there as a soccer and baseball coach and he's coached a lot of other sports in his time there. But those are the two staples for him. He's had a lot of successful athletes. Guys go play in the big leagues or guys go play in Europe in major league soccer.
"It's a good relationship he and I have. He's my hero. He's the reason I'd like to be a head coach some day, but for right now I'm just excited to have, arguably, the best assistant coaching job in the country."
Even though TCU hit at just a .245 clip as a team last season, Van Horn said Vitello's knowledge and experience will help the Razorbacks' offense be effective. The Horned Frogs hit .306 and scored 6.7 runs per game in 2011, Vitello's first season at TCU.
"Tony felt like he wanted to have more hands on with the offense and he got to do it his first year at TCU and then they had another of their coaches leave, I think he went to West Virginia, and they brought in another guy and it (offense) kind of got split up.
"He wants to be more involved with — we’re not calling it hitting, it’s more about scoring runs. It’s about offense. We’re on the same page there as far as maybe drawing walks, getting hit by pitches, just maybe working a little bit more on teams that can manucfacture, that you can put together that can score runs. You saw the way the teams were in the Series at the end with Mississippi State and UCLA. They were teams that are going to hit line drives and ground balls and figure out a way to win."