San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey hired University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello as the team's manager this winter. Vitello became the first person to move directly from a college head coach position to a major league manager.

The 47-year-old Vitello never played professional baseball, never coached professionally, and never wore a professional team uniform in any capacity. He led Tennessee to a College World Series championship in 2024 and reached the tournament three times during his eight seasons as head coach.

Since winning the 2021 National League West division title, the Giants have employed three different managers. Aside from their 107-win season in 2021, the Giants had four consecutive seasons finishing within two games of a .500 record.

Before his first full-squad workout, Vitello gave a clubhouse speech stressing the value of being a good teammate. During the workout, he took the field wearing an infielder's glove straight out of its box and took ground balls at first base during pitcher fielding practice drills.

"It's like he's everywhere at once. He's at the cages, and then you look around and he's at the backfield looking at guys taking ground balls, and then 10 minutes later he's watching guys running the bases. It's not something a lot of managers do," shortstop Willy Adames said.

A documentary film crew led by Colin Hanks followed Vitello during the first full-squad workout. "First day of school," reliever Tristan Beck said.

Vitello had limited exposure to Major League Baseball spring training before taking the Giants job. Before February 21, 2026, he had never attended a Major League Baseball spring training game. More than a decade ago, as an assistant at Texas Christian University, he spent 36 hours with the Texas Rangers at spring training but did not stay for a full workout.

The University of Tennessee had not appeared in the College World Series for 12 years when Vitello was hired as the head coach in 2017. Under his leadership, the Volunteers reached the tournament three times and won the championship in 2024.

"That's an interesting take. It's not something I considered going through the process," Buster Posey said.