Don’t take Dave Van Horn for granted, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello told the “Chuck and Bo Show” on the radio in Northwest Arkansas earlier this week. He was warning Arkansas fans and the sports department as a whole.
The most shocking thing he said about the two groups was that he thought the University of Arkansas had a history of taking advantage of Van Horn because of how much he loved the school and the program.
“I think I’ll go out on a limb, and I don’t know if it’s okay to share with you guys, from my perspective, from being there, I think his loyalty to the university has been taken advantage of a little bit,” he said. “And I hope they make it obvious that that’s where he’s going to end his career, and I hope they reward him for what he’s done.”
A big part of that view probably comes from how the university has treated Van Horn’s money. When Vitello quit as an assistant coach for the Razorbacks in 2017 to take over a failing Tennessee program, he quickly set up a $1.5 million-a-year deal that almost doubled his mentor’s salary. Meanwhile, Van Horn made less than a million dollars a year, even though he had decades of experience and success, including multiple trips to the College World Series.
Not long after Van Horn was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2021, Arkansas bumped him up past the $1 million mark, but soon after, Tennessee made Vitello the highest coach in baseball with a $3 million contract with additional incentives to make the pot even sweeter.
It’s the equivalent of if Nick Saban had made nearly half of what his former assistant Kirby Smart got to take over Georgia only to have Smart nearly double what Alabama was paying Saban just a few years after Smart got settled in Athens.
It wouldn’t happen. Yet, that’s exactly the case at Arkansas in baseball, so Vitello has made an effort to indirectly point that out, although there are probably additional factors hidden behind his warning.
As far as his words to the fans the number one concern was whether certain portions of the base had gotten grumpy because Van Horn has yet to lead Arkansas to a national championship.
“I think the one thing I would say about my former boss in coach Van Horn, you can’t judge a coach like Rick Barnes based off how a tournament goes, because, again, crazy things can happen, and you need breaks this time of year to get what you want. But if you look at a whole body of work, he’s the winningest coach out there by percentage,” Vitello said. “… I think people get spoiled and don’t realize how good they have it. And sometimes, you look for what you don’t have instead of enjoying what you do have and you got a spoiled fan base there [at Arkansas], and they should recognize that.”
The general observation from covering the program the past several years is not that fans are angry Van Horn hasn’t won a championship. Instead, it’s more of an anxiousness that a man who deserves his championship moment may not get it before his time is up. Razorbacks fans generally understand that Van Horn didn’t drop the pop-up.
They get that he wasn’t responsible for throwing that final strike against Oregon State. They know he had no control over the bats going ice cold against an Ole Miss team that was last into the field back in 2022 with the CWS championship series on the line.
Sure, there are probably a small handful of loud people out there who get their underwear twisted any year Arkansas doesn’t win the national championship, but the lack of appreciation for Van Horn doesn’t extend much more than that tiny circle. Now, for the accusation that Razorbacks fans are spoiled, that is true.
It’s hard for them not to be considering Van Horn’s success. The Hogs never go more than four years without packing for Omaha, they’re always near the top of the SEC, and they’re almost always going to be in the Top 10 in the country and host a regional.
Missing the tournament all together is something Arkansas fans can’t picture in their heads, and that’s because of the monster Van Horn has created. Still, Vitello wants Razorbacks supporters to reflect on that and appreciate it for the miracle it truly is.
“At University of Mississippi, the loud voices criticized Coach [Mike] Bianco just because their year ends shorter than they wanted to, and everybody in the SEC always wants more, but the regular, average, or majority of fans know Coach Bianco, he created that thing out of dust, and he also won a national championship,” Vitello said. “So as great as he’s done there, I don’t mind saying Coach Van Horn has done better for Razorback Nation.”
In the end, Vitello says it’s the simplicity of Van Horn’s approach that makes what fans are experiencing possible. So long as proper appreciation is shown, it’s something the former Razorbacks assistant thinks will continue to guarantee success on the diamond.
“He keeps it simple, never sweats the small stuff, is always very confident, and the players can sense that,” he said. “And I’ve been guilty at times as a young coach not being confident or rushing things, or, I won’t say panicking, but, you know, the players can sense what you got going on, and as a Razorback, you have no option other than to keep things simple, compete your butt off, play hard, and also expect to win. And so what you get is a winning product year in and year out.”
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