Jan. 16, 2007
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By John Manuel, Baseball America
Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin grew up in Wolfeboro, N.H., and was a high school senior when Mike Eruzione and the U.S. Olympic hockey team made Americans believe in miracles in 1980.
So understand, when he compares Rice baseball to the Russian hockey team, he intends it as a compliment.
“Rice absolutely is a model for us,” Corbin said of the Owls, who have reached the College World Series five times in the last decade and won the 2003 national championship. “I learned a lot from Jack Leggett when I was an assistant at Clemson, but you see Wayne Graham and Rice with a similar situation as ours, and it’s obvious that they are doing something right. So I did reach out to him and call him when I got the job here because I wanted to know what he thought I could apply to our situation.
“We’re like Rice in many ways. Rice is Russia, and we’re the USA. They’re proven, and I want us to prove that we can have that kind of success.”
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Corbin and the Commodores are on their way, moving into the 64th spot in our analysis of college baseball programs since 1999. Entering his fifth season at the Nashville school, Corbin has raised the program from Southeastern Conference afterthought to consistent regional contender. Vanderbilt averaged 27 victories annually in 24 seasons under Corbin’s predecessor, Roy Mewbourne, but it has averaged 36 wins under Corbin.
Kentucky, in coach John Cohen’s third season, turned a similar trick last year, going from a 12th-place preseason pick by SEC coaches to a first-place regular-season finish. Kentucky and Vanderbilt used to be the only consistent lower-division teams in the SEC, and now both are seen as contenders.
“Some people ask me about that, as if it were a bad thing,” said Mississippi State coach Ron Polk, a fixture in the SEC since 1975 both in Starkville and at Georgia. “I tell ’em all the same thing–it’s good for our conference. Now, all 12 teams in our conference give their coaches the resources to compete, and that wasn’t the case before.”
Corbin Factor
Many of Vanderbilt’s advantages were in place under Mewbourne, including the refurbished Hawkins Field, which received a significant makeover in 2002. The school has long been considered the best academic institution in the SEC, giving players the chance to get an Ivy League-like education while still playing in the nation’s deepest conference.
The differences stem from Corbin, who instantly infused a hard-nosed, winning attitude inherited from Leggett during his tenure at Clemson as an assistant. His first Commodores club went just 27-28, but with many of the same players–including current Indians lefthander Jeremy Sowers–Vanderbilt went 45-19 in 2004, made its first regional appearance in 24 years, and advanced to a super-regional, where it was swept by Texas.
That first team laid the foundation for what the Commodores have become–a national force on the recruiting trail. In a partial-scholarship sport that appeals to upper-middle-class students who value education, Vanderbilt has become a contender for prospects of all colors and creeds, as long as they have talent.
Commodores rank as the top prospects on the college side for both the 2007 and 2008 drafts, and both are minorities. Junior lefthander David Price, who hails from a middle-class African-American family, was BA’s Summer College Player of the Year and enters the spring as the nation’s top college prospect. Sophomore third baseman Pedro Alvarez, a Hispanic from modest means in New York City, joined Price and Corbin on Team USA last summer and is battling Justin Smoak of South Carolina for the title of No. 1 prospect in the Class of ’08.
Under Mewbourne, Vanderbilt regularly landed top prospects such as Sowers or Mark Prior, a freshman there in 1998 who transferred to Southern California after one season. The difference now is, Corbin brings in complementary talent, keeps much of it around for four years and has taught the Commodores to win.
Talented Leaders
Corbin credits Alvarez and Price for refusing to play the role of future millionaire prima donna. He already has leaned on both for a championship, as Team USA won the gold medal last summer in Cuba at the FISU World University championship.
“I don’t know that I’ve had much to do with it, but those are really unique kids in that I’ve never seen two players of their caliber who are as involved in the team,” Corbin said. “They are remarkable in the sincerity of their feelings for their teammates.
“They were both raised really well, both from real blue-collar backgrounds, and money is not what defines them. I think it’s interesting that it was two kids like them that typically don’t play college baseball, and those are the first-round talents we held onto through the draft.”
Because of Vanderbilt’s SEC competition, attractive ballpark, strong education and new winning tradition, it’s able to hold onto players like Alvarez and Price even when major league organizations consider drafting them out of high school. Moreover, Corbin said a major reason he accepted the job at Vanderbilt was the school’s potential to hold onto drafted juniors. He pointed to Rice again as a school that has kept its drafted juniors, convincing many of them to come back as seniors and helping fuel runs to Omaha.
“I think of guys like Kenny Baugh and their ace last year (Eddie Degerman), and Rice has always done a great job of getting their draft guys, their tweeners–guys drafted between the 10th and 20th rounds–to come back as seniors,” he said. “Not everyone gets to keep their seniors, but we’ve had some success with that, and that’s a key factor in getting to Omaha. I know we had that at Clemson with Khalil Greene (in 2002) and that’s the kind of thing you can do at a school like Vanderbilt.”
Corbin has shown he can make Vanderbilt matter. The next step is to truly emulate the Russians, er, Owls–get to Omaha and win a national championship.
It would have taken a miracle a decade ago for Vanderbilt to reach those goals. Now, everything is possible.