June 21, 2015
By Jerome Boettcher
OMAHA, Neb. — As Philip Pfeifer drove with his mother to his grandmother’s house, the conversation turned to college decisions.
In the midst of breaking several Tennessee state high school records, including career wins, the left-handed pitcher was highly sought after by multiple college coaches. His mother, Janet, asked what he was thinking, who he felt most comfortable with.
“There are plenty of college coaches who are going to show me how to be a great player,” Pfeifer recalls telling his mother. “Only Coach (Tim) Corbin is going to show me how to become the man I need to be.”
On Sunday morning, Pfeifer and a handful of his teammates went bouncing from station to station, interview to interview from ESPN to Westwood One Radio to NCAA.com, handling the media duties that come with advancing to the College World Series championship round for the second straight year.
The topics ranged from reaching this point once again, emotions of possibly winning another championship, uniqueness of seeing Virginia in a rare rematch. When asked about head coach Tim Corbin, the Commodores echoed Pfeifer’s sentiments. They described him as a teacher, as a hard worker, as passionate, committed, caring and supportive.
Fittingly these characteristics were uttered on Father’s Day.
“Coach Corbin is a father figure to all of us,” pitcher Carson Fulmer said. “He is a little different of a coach than I thought I would have, someone I’m going to keep with the rest of my life and love the rest of my life.”
Corbin doesn’t have any children of his own, but the 53-year-old is a father to many. Close to his heart are his the two daughters of his wife, Maggie. For more than 20 years, Hannah and Molly, have felt Corbin’s fatherly love and concern. In 2012, when Molly, then 27, underwent a medical scare, Corbin dropped everything during a series on the road at LSU in Baton Rouge, La. He turned the reins over to his assistant coaches, hopped on a plane back to Nashville and was by Molly and Maggie’s side at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Then there are the hundreds of sons he has gained over three decades of coaching. Currently, there are 33 young men he watches over on Vanderbilt’s baseball team. He doesn’t take the role of father figure lightly.
“I think it is a responsibility — a heavy responsibility — in a lot of ways because to me it is a lot of modeling,” he said on Sunday, this hours after opening his press conference by wishing all fathers a Happy Father’s Day. “It is not really saying. It is more about what you do and how you act every day and the consistency of how you do it. (Father’s Day) is of high importance. It brings you back in terms of thinking of your responsibilities toward other people.”
Corbin doesn’t just talk the talk. He is a living example of practicing what you preach.
Hours before their morning media session at TD Ameritrade Park on Sunday, Corbin was already awake and seizing the day.
“He was lifting at 5:30 this morning,” pitcher Walker Buehler said. “When you have a coach do that it is hard to look in the mirror and say you need an off day. There isn’t anyone else like him out there.”
To Corbin, the responsibility of watching and guiding someone else’s children 10 months out of the year is not a solo project.
Along with his coaching staff, Corbin implores his wife’s help. Maggie is at every game, at every team function. As much as Tim is a father to his players, Maggie is a mother.
“As far as I was concerned I never wanted her to work because I felt like this was going to be a team effort between she and I, along with the coaching staff, to help raise these kids,” he said. “I just thought we are addressing their needs and we’re fine as a family in terms of what we have. Now it is just a matter of turning our attention to the kids so we can take care of someone’s else children like I tried to take care of hers.”
At the joint press conference on Sunday with Virginia coach Brian O’Connor, Corbin was asked if he had as unique and close of a relationship with a team as he does this current Commodore squad.
Corbin responded he hadn’t allowed himself to in the past. As much teaching as he has doled out over the years, he admits he has also had to learn from past experiences.
“I’m not going to tell you I’ve got any part of this figured out, but I think there’s priorities that exist and my perspective was not always as clean as it needed to be,” he said. “And so I think I’ve learned to enjoy it more than I did maybe 10 years ago. And for that I apologize to the kids that I coached in the past, because I wish I had a redo, and I wish I had a rewind button where I could go back and at least enjoy them a little bit more than I did. And I hope they won’t hold any grudges against me for that. I think this whole teaching thing has been a little bit clearer for me in the past couple of years — and my approach to the kids now.”
Like any father-son relationship there is also friendly ribbing that exists with Corbin and crew.
When Vanderbilt shortstop and No. 1 draft pick Dansby Swanson’s father, Cooter, tossed the ball around with hitting coach Travis Jewett during practice on Sunday, Corbin was quick to quip, “We’ve finally got a Swanson who is an athlete on the field!”
The head coach is not immune from playful banter and joshing that is commonplace in the baseball clubhouse.
“It keeps me young mentally because they’re sharp and they fire back at me,” Corbin said. “But I wouldn’t want any other way. If they are not joking with me I know something would be around. As long as they continue to call me an old man and agitate me I’m right at peace with that.”
In an interview with the Tennessean last fall, Philip Pfeifer said Corbin was “responsible for me being alive today.” Corbin has downplayed his role. But Pfeifer insists a huge reason he is back in a Commodore uniform and pitching in this College World Series is because Corbin was less concerned about the baseball aspect. He wanted to make sure Pfeifer got his life straight first.
“It was about strike three,” Pfeifer said. “Corbs decided to work with me. I was fortunate enough to have a coach who cared. He has been the best.”
Under Corbin’s watch, 85 Vanderbilt players have been drafted. As those players work their way up the minor league ladder and make it to the big leagues, Corbin watches proudly with each big accomplishment.
But he also gets that same warm feeling when his former players share key moments outside of baseball. Sonny Gray, only four years removed from pitching at Hawkins Field, is the ace of Oakland’s pitching staff. The other day, though, he got just as excited receiving a photo of Gray’s six-month-old son holding up the VU sign as he would watching Gray strike out the side.
Like a good father, he cherishes every one of his child’s milestones, regardless if baseball is in the picture.
“That becomes real. That becomes a little bit more raw because he was just with us in 2011. Now he has his own child,” Corbin said. “The baseball part of it is great. I’m glad they’re fulfilling their dream and I’m glad they are getting an opportunity to play. But, for me, it’s probably more about the personal things than anything else. Their happiness is paramount to me.”
