The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame announced Monday afternoon that Tennessee men’s basketball head coach Rick Barnes has been recognized as the winner of the prestigious Pat Summitt Lifetime Achievement Award, in response to his remarkable impact on UT’s culture, character and development. The Tennessee baseball program earned the title of Male Amateur Team of the Year, the Hall announced.
 
Since arriving on Rocky Top in 2015, Barnes has transformed the Volunteers into a national powerhouse. Entering his 11th season in Knoxville and 39th overall as a head coach, Barnes is Tennessee’s all-time winningest coach and one of college basketball’s most respected figures.
 
Under his leadership, Tennessee has earned eight consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, including back-to-back Elite Eight trips in 2024 and 2025. The program has claimed three SEC titles in that span, including the 2022 SEC Tournament crown—Tennessee’s first in over four decades—and regular season championships in 2018 and 2024. The Volunteers have also achieved six 25-win seasons and held the nation’s No. 1 ranking multiple times, including for five weeks during the 2024-25 campaign.
 
Barnes, who boasts more than 800 career wins, was the 2018-19 Naismith Coach of the Year recipient and a 2024 first-time nominee for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
 
Barnes’ impact can be felt on and off the court. He has coached eight future NBA players draft selections since 2019, and his leadership has resulted in sustained academic success, with perfect APR scores in seven of the last eight multi-year reports.
 
On the diamond, the Tennessee baseball program reached the mountain top in 2024, winning the first National Championship in program history by defeating Texas A&M in the Men’s College World Series Finals. Led by National Coach of the Year Tony Vitello, the Volunteers became the first SEC team to ever win 60 games in a season, finishing with an incredible 60-13 overall record. UT also became just the fourth program in history to win the SEC regular season crown, the SEC Tournament title and the National Championship in the same year, cementing itself as one of the greatest college baseball teams ever.
 
Tennessee had seven players earn postseason All-America honors, led by consensus first-team selections Blake Burke (unanimous) and Christian Moore. Joining Burke and Moore as All-Americans were Drew Beam, AJ Causey, Dylan Dreiling, Dean Curley (Freshman Team) and Dylan Loy (Freshman Team). The trio of Moore, Burke and Dreiling had a heavy hand in UT’s record-setting power numbers as the Big Orange led the nation with a program-record 184 home runs, which ranks second in NCAA Division I history. The Vols became the first team in NCAA history to have five players hit 20 or more home runs in a single season, led by Moore’s program record 34 long balls.
 
Tennessee’s pitching staff was once again one of the best in the nation, as well, finishing sixth in the country with a 3.89 ERA. The Vols also finished in the top five nationally in strikeout-to-walk ratio, walks allowed per nine innings and WHIP. Senior lefty Zander Sechrist put together one of the most dominant postseasons in program history, posting a 4-0 record with a 1.57 ERA over five starts which included victories in the SEC Tournament semifinal, NCAA Knoxville Regional final and game three of the NCAA Knoxville Super Regional to send UT to Omaha for the seventh time in program history. Sechrist led the Vols to two more wins during their MCWS championship run, tossing a career-high tying 6.1 innings in a win over Florida State to send Tennessee to the championship series before striking out seven batters over 5.1 innings of one-run ball in the winner-take-all game three of the finals against Texas A&M.
 
Sechrist was one of four Vols named to the MCWS All-Tournament Team, along with Dean Curley, Moore and Dreiling, who was also named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after batting .542 with three home runs and 11 RBIs in Omaha, including going 7-for-12 with seven RBIs in the finals. The Kansas native became the first player in MCWS history to homer in all three games of the finals and also had the walk-off hit in UT’s thrilling comeback victory over Florida State in its opening game of the tournament.