Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello added a handful of familiar names and one new name to his staff this summer after the Vols won their first National Championship in program history.
Director of Baseball Operations Chad Zurcher and assistant coach Richard Jackson both left the Vols’ program for jobs outside of the baseball world.
Vitello brought in former Tennessee assistant coach Ross Kivett to replace Jackson as an assistant coach while also hiring Cincinnati pitching coach Josh Reynolds and former Tennessee infielder and graduate assistant Ricky Martinez.
While the hires were all official this summer, the official positions for all the coaches weren’t yet clear. Tennessee updated the coaches on its website on Tuesday with the titles for all of the new coaches as well as a couple changes in title for returning coaches on staff.
Reynolds is the Director of Baseball Operations and Pitching Performance and is the true replacement for Jackson who was the bullpen coach and worked with the pitchers.
Reynolds comes to Tennessee after spending last season as the pitching coach at Cincinnati. In his lone season at Cincinnati, the Bearcats team-ERA (5.89) improved almost a full run from the season before and ranked 135th nationally. Prior to his time at Cincinnati, Reynolds coached at Northwestern and Kansas State. Reynolds was an assistant coach at Kansas State while Kivett was a standout for the Wildcats.
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Former team manager Adam Low is the Assistant Director of Baseball Operations and will provide more of the operations side of the job while Reynolds will help out more on the baseball side of things.
Martinez is Tennessee’s new Director of Player Development. A former Tennessee shortstop, Martinez spent three years on Vitello’s staff (2021-23) before leaving for a full-time assistant coach job at New Mexico State. Martinez returned to Tennessee after just one year away. He previously helped coach infielders during his first stint in Knoxville.
Luke Bonfield was previously Tennessee’s Director of Player Development from 2021-2024 after joining Vitello’s staff ahead of the 2020 season. Bonfield is now the Vols’ Director of Recruiting Operations. He played his college baseball at Arkansas while Vitello was an assistant coach there.
Tennessee baseball is coming off the program’s first ever National Championship and is currently the best program in the country. In the last four years, the Vols have thrice made it to the College World Series and have won the SEC Regular Season and SEC Tournament twice.
