June 18, 2012
A backhand slice, a forehand volley and Tim Corbin suddenly found himself at the net, just steps from his future wife, 18 years ago in Charleston, S.C.
Maggie paused as the point ended. She gazed across the net and asked a doozy of a question.
“I thought it was going to be about tennis,” Corbin said. “She goes, `Will you ever consider marrying me?’ And I said, `No.’ And she started crying.”
Vanderbilt’s baseball coach of the last 10 years — back then a first-year Clemson assistant — shifted into damage control.
That piercing answer, Corbin clarified, meant “not right now” because he didn’t feel ready to be a father to two young stepdaughters. And he was sure that Maggie’s girls, Molly and Hannah Blatt, weren’t ready to accept him with open arms after enduring a recent divorce.
