May 31, 2007
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Hawkins More Than Just a Mere Reserve for Vanderbilt
Feature Column By Will Matthews
NASHVILLE – Not long into its first practice Tuesday since winning the SEC Tournament last weekend, the Vanderbilt baseball team took a break from its stretching routines and gathered in a huddle in short center field.
When the group let out a vociferous roar several moments later before breaking up into various games of catch and fielding drills, the message was clear: its stirring run to the conference championship was firmly in the rear view mirror and its sights were set squarely on this weekend’s NCAA regional playoffs.
“That’s Carter right there,” Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin observed, interrupting a conversation he was having with a local television reporter. “That is all about Carter.”
Indeed, Vanderbilt senior catcher Carter Hawkins was at the huddle’s center, just as he has been at the center of many other similar pre-practice huddles since day one of this most magical of baseball seasons. Like so many other times before, it was Hawkins who prompted the gathering Tuesday, and it was Hawkins’ words that elicited the emotional response from his teammates.
“I was just trying to get the guys to get whatever we had from last week out of our systems,” Hawkins said several hours later after practice had been completed. “It was kind of a hokey deal but it was really just to try and get across the message that it is over and done with. It was fun and we had a couple of days to think about it and celebrate it but now we have got business to do on Friday. So I was just trying to make everyone realize that from today on it was all about Austin Peay and nothing about any Ole Miss game or any Arkansas game we may have won in the past.”
Hawkins has played in just 22 of Vanderbilt’s 62 games this year, has just two hits, one RBI, has scored just one run and he has made just one start – on Senior Day May 19, the final day of the regular season and in a game that otherwise had little meaning. But for Corbin, giving Hawkins the start that day was his way of paying tribute to what Corbin and any other member of the Commodore team would say is the instrumental off-field leadership that has become Hawkins’ hallmark at Vanderbilt.
“There is no way that I could overstate what Carter means to this team,” Corbin said recently. “His leadership, the ways in which he keeps guys motivated and focused on what is in front of them is incredible. He is like an additional coach out there for me and it means the world.”
Hawkins has been bypassed several times on No. 1-ranked Vanderbilt’s depth chart in the four years since he entered the program as a freshman, so the legacy he will leave behind has little to do with on-field performance.
But make no mistake: despite his paltry numbers Hawkins will long be remembered as the heart and soul of a team that, if Hawkins’ own analysis proves correct, could well earn Vanderbilt’s first-ever berth in the College World Series.
“I’m just someone who has been there and who knows what Coach Corbin expects,” Hawkins said. “I’m an extension of Coach on the field and in the dugout. Corbin can only do so much, I can only do so much and the guys on the field can only do so much. But I think all of us, in our own way, contribute to what makes us do the kinds of things that this team is able to do. It takes more leaders than just me – people are going to have to step up on the field the way Tyler Rhoden did this weekend, or the way Pedro [Alvarez] did or what Shea [Robin] was able to do. But my job is to help make sure that Vanderbilt baseball goes the way Coach Corbin envisioned it would go when he first stepped into the program five years ago.”
Hawkins admits it hasn’t always been easy having to divorce himself from the visions he brought into the program with him of playing a starring role for one of the nation’s elite programs and facing the reality that he instead would be only a marginal utility player.
But rather than bemoan his predicament or look to transfer to a different school, Hawkins chose to look for the way in which he could make a contribution to the team – even if that contribution didn’t come on the field.
“I’m happy that I have found my niche on the team, I am happy that I found a role,” Hawkins said. “Sure I’d love to be on the field, sure I’d love to be playing. That’s why I came here – to play baseball. And that is what I love to do. But I also love the guys, I love the team and I love winning and being a part of that. Being a part of something this great and knowing that you have a role, knowing that you have a part – albeit maybe a small part – I don’t have any regrets. It has been an unbelievable experience.”
And, Hawkins says, he has learned lessons along the way that he believes will serve him for the rest of his life.
“The biggest thing for me has been learning that if things aren’t going for you exactly how you want them to go for you, that everyone has it in them to find something that they are good at, to change it to make it so that they are successful in whatever way it is,” Hawkins said. “I wasn’t necessarily the star catcher, but I found something that I was good at and went with it and worked hard at it.”
As one of only three seniors on the team’s current active roster – and the only one to have been with the program for as many as four years – Hawkins has a unique ability to realistically understand just how good this Vanderbilt team is. He is the lone remaining holdover from the 2004 club that earned Vanderbilt’s only previous trip to the Super Regionals before being roundly dismissed by eventual national runner-up Texas.
“I think our confidence level is higher than it was in 2004,” Hawkins said. “I think we know that we are a better team. In 2004 we won a lot of games but I remember our first practice in Austin before that Super Regional. We got there early and Texas was practicing and they looked like what we look like now. People were making diving plays, they were having fun, dropping bombs in batting practice. You could see in our eyes, I think, that we were thinking, `Are we ready for this?'”
Three years later, Hawkins says he has little doubt that this year’s Vanderbilt team is in fact ready to accomplish the goal it set for itself on the first day of practice: a trip to Omaha.
“I think we have the talent, I think we have the pitching, I think we have the hitting, I think we have the defense and I think we have the heart,” Hawkins said. “But we also realize that it starts this Friday and it starts with winning that game. So we are not really going to think about that. It has always been in the back of our heads, but we are going to think about this Friday more than anything because we know that is the first step on that road.”
When all is said and done, Hawkins says he will walk away with no regrets, despite his relative lack of playing time. He says he takes pride in knowing that the evolution of the Vanderbilt baseball program during the past four years mirrors the personal growth that he has undergone during the same time period.
And, he says, he can’t imagine going through it all with a better group of guys.
“There are no bad eggs on this team,” Hawkins said. “Everyone on this team is totally dedicated to each other. They don’t care about themselves. They only care about Vanderbilt baseball and Vanderbilt baseball winning. I can honestly say that I love every one of the guys and I think every one of the guys loves me and loves each other. And that is a strong word to throw around, especially with a bunch of college kids on a college baseball team. But I don’t think I’m blowing any smoke saying it. It has been a pretty special experience.”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2007 from Vanderbilt Divinity School. To email Will your feedback, Click Here