Connect
N EWS F ROM A LUM N I
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
League of His Own Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin ’80 is the winningest baseball coach in the program’s history. As Head Coach Tim Corbin begins his 20th season this spring, he’s looking to extend Vanderbilt’s advance as a baseball powerhouse. Corbin has led the blackand-gold Commodores to two national championships and 15 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances—the longest streak in SEC history. No baseball story is complete without statistics—and Corbin’s are impressive: five College World Series appearances, 52 All-American student-athletes, 26 future Major League Baseball (MLB) players, including 18 selected in the first round of the MLB draft. It’s quite a transformation since 2002, when Corbin arrived at Vanderbilt. The program hadn’t played in the NCAA Tournament since 1980 or the SEC Tournament since 1996. Two years after he arrived in Nashville, he signed future Cy Young Award winner David Price and guided the team to its first NCAA Tournament, a feat he has since replicated every year but one. A year later, he signed future American League home run champion Pedro Alvarez and eight-year MLB veteran Ryan Flaherty. Regarded as one of the top coaches in college baseball, Corbin’s approach has earned him recognition on the diamond and off. He was named SEC Coach of Year three times, National Coach of the Year in 2019, and was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2020. Vanderbilt’s administration looks to him as a leader on campus. “By offering student-athletes a world-class education … while competing in the SEC, Coach Corbin has forged college baseball’s preeminent
36
KIMBALL UNION MAGAZINE
program and a team that we are all proud to call our own,” says Vanderbilt Athletic Director Candice Lee. The Wolfeboro, N.H., native’s journey from player to coach began on the fields at KUA. He says he “played third base, second base, and catcher and pitched a few innings in the spring of 1980” before heading to Ohio Wesleyan. There, he played baseball in the spring and served as football student manager in the fall, learning how to manage equipment, break down film, and organize recruiting efforts. It was a liberal arts education in the finest sense: “When you are doing both athletics and academics, I think it creates organization, structure, and routine,” he says. “When you’re going to be a teacher-coach, that in itself is the greatest learning tool.” After earning his degree in physical education, Corbin returned to Meriden as a junior varsity coach, then restarted a dormant program at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., as head coach. Six years later, he moved 70 miles west to serve as an assistant coach at Clemson. He helped the Tigers reach the College World Series four times and coached three ACC Players of Year. But Corbin—whose 802-377 win-loss record makes him first all-time in wins at Vanderbilt—isn’t content with last year’s score. His philosophy is focused on the immediate day. As he told he told Sports Illustrated after winning the 2019 College World Series: “All I care about is that once they get here in the afternoon, they get better.” K
