Danny White, the director of athletics at Tennessee, prefers not to make the conventional splash hire, but he has been successful in selecting coaches who, regardless of the school, find ways to win. It was Nate Oats at Buffalo. Josh Heupel was the one at UCF. Tony Vitello and Heupel have been at Tennessee.
There are a few characteristics shared by all those coaches. They are devoted culture creators who place a high value on fostering connections with both the recruiting trail and the building’s participants. These characteristics have already contributed to some success for the football and baseball programs.
Even though Rick Barnes wasn’t hired by White, he still possesses similar qualities and has done a fantastic job developing the men’s basketball team. Although we don’t know much about Kim Caldwell’s future, the new Lady Vols basketball coach is off to a strong start in her brief tenure at Rocky Top.
She spoke at her first press conference on Tuesday, addressing Pat Summitt, the person who has been the buzz of the town since her hiring. The fact that Caldwell is not related to the Summitt or Lady Vol families has caused some attention to be focused on her hiring. She said, quite eloquently, that she would never be Summitt but would instead strive to be someone of whom she could be proud.
Regarding Caldwell’s coaching, one major concern is her recruiting of high school students. In the 2024 cycle, she signed exactly zero high school recruits, which at first glance may be cause for concern. She put a lot of effort into using the transfer site to find players with collegiate basketball experience, which contributed to her success in turning around the Marshall team.
She brought in two transfers to Marshall during that recruiting cycle, which enabled her to turn the program from an ordinary Sun Belt squad into the best team in the conference. She entered Marshall and altered the society, despite having two beneficial contributions via the portal.
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