Saturday Blueprint With Tim Corbin

Tim Corbin was fired up. 

He had just been hired as an assistant baseball coach at Clemson, and now a radio show caller was ranting about just how unqualified this New Englander was to recruit for one of the nation’s premier programs. 

“My heart rate was going up,” Corbin said. “I was so motivated by the fact someone would question whether or not I could do it that I got pulled over for speeding within a 15-minute time period.”

Corbin spent more than a month straight on the road recruiting — partly trying to validate Coach Jack Leggett’s decision to take a chance on him.

More than two decades later, Corbin has won two National Championships as head coach of Vanderbilt baseball and is widely regarded as one of the top coaches in the nation.   

The Daily Coach spoke to him about essentially building a college program from scratch, “adjusted confidence and innocence,” and a critical piece of coaching advice his wife gave him.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Coach, thanks a lot for doing this. I know your father was in the Army. Tell us a little about your childhood and some key lessons from it.

We grew up in rural New Hampshire, in Wolfeboro. There wasn’t much there. My dad was a serviceman in the United States. Being loyal and respectful of our country was always important to him and my mother.

The first movies I ever saw with my dad were military movies, “Patton,” “Tora! Tora! Tora!” I was 9 or 10 years old, but I felt he was instilling in me a thought process of before anything, you’re a United States citizen. The people who were governing the country, whether it was Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, he made me aware that you didn’t have to like the president, but there was a deep respect for that person and what they stood for.

I had a good high school football coach who I always looked up to. I always felt I was an organizer. I organized a street hockey league when I was 12 years old and always enjoyed putting teams together and scheduling. It was on my mind all the time, even when I was in school. Once we got out at 2:30 or 3 p.m., I was working on that.

You end up playing baseball at Ohio Wesleyan, then take over as the coach at Presbyterian College in South Carolina at a pretty young age. What’d you learn in essentially building that program from scratch?

There wasn’t a field, there wasn’t a staff, there wasn’t a budget. There weren’t bats, balls or uniforms. The first year, we played all 29 games on the road. But I learned how to be resourceful. It totally shaped me as a teacher, coach and person. I had to learn how to teach in small groups, develop practice plans.

There was no expectation. I didn’t take anything for granted. You’re like a small business owner. It’s yours. But I also understood gratitude. You didn’t have to have everything in order to have a college baseball program. We didn’t have lights back then. We took the players’ cars and parked them around the field and turned their car lights on if we wanted to practice later into the night.

I just looked at that experience as being tough at the time, but where else could you learn how to pour concrete, learn how to lay brick for a dugout, learn how to build a field? I was a Northeast kid coming to the South. I had no idea what Bermuda grass was, how to grow it, how to fertilize, how to get on a tractor. I don’t do these things now, but I certainly know they are part of the fibers of who I am today.

When you look back on those early coaching years, why do you think your strengths and weaknesses were?

The shortcomings always come out quicker than what you think you do well. Lack of patience, quick-tempered. I felt if something was going to get done, it was going to get done right now. I demanded that of myself. I was very youthful and immature as a coach. My intentions were good, but sometimes my intentions would get lost with my ineptness as a human being.  

I overcame those in time and had good help around me. I was disciplined and organized and felt I knew how to build lesson plans. I had a desire to make sure whatever needed to get done would get done. I was driven and motivated to build a program and the habits of the kids inside the program. My heart was in the right place. Sometimes, the intentionality of it got lost, but I got better with time.  

You went from Presbyterian to being an assistant at Clemson and developed a reputation as an elite recruiter. What do you think made you so effective? 

I had a desire to be good at it. I enjoyed meeting different people. It probably goes back to my dad. I worked for him in the automotive parts business, and he put my brother and me in situations where we were always communicating with adults, always communicating with older people. I was also in the restaurant business and was a busboy and worked in a kitchen at a popular summer restaurant. From a social skills standpoint, I think I learned those traits at an early age. 

When I look at recruiting, I think it was learning how to communicate with other people, enjoying it, and making people feel good about themselves. I always felt I had the ability to do that. I enjoyed evaluating, but I really enjoyed getting in the homes of young kids and their parents and talking to them about what their future would look like and how our program could help them.

You take over at Vanderbilt in 2003. What were you trying to establish early on with your program?  

I took good notes, both physical and mental with Coach Leggett (at Clemson) and left there with a large notebook and a thought process. When you move from an assistant coach to a head coach, I went into the program with adjusted confidence and innocence. You’re prepared to the best of your ability, but you’re still not prepared at the level the program is going to need you need to be. I went in with my eyes wide open with realistic and cautious optimism, no declarations, just kind of a workman-like approach.  

I was growing into my skin as a head coach, gaining intuition and just felt like Vanderbilt was like the Presbyterian of the SEC. There were no expectations. I just wanted to teach commitment and investment level to the kids and what it looked like. I understood I needed to model those behaviors first and create a vision.

I wanted to grow the baseball program based on what the university looked like: High expectations and values built upon high academic standards.

You used the phrase “Adjusted confidence and innocence.” What is that to you? 

I didn’t have any thoughts of coming in here and building something that’s never been done before. I didn’t go into it like that. I went into it like, “I’ve got confidence in myself. I have a work ethic. I’m going to lean on other people for help. I’m not going into this situation unknowing. I’m going in with a realistic approach of, ‘If I put my head down and stay in my lane and do it to the best of my ability, then I have confidence this will work out at some point in time.’”

I didn’t build up these false expectations that I think some people get lost in. I just wanted to make this program as good it possibly could be. If it’s only as good as being mid-range, then that’s what it is.

I believe in karma. I didn’t want to think that I had this figured out. I didn’t have anything figured out. I was just trying to build as a coach and build the players around us and create an environment that could help other people be good.

Your classroom sessions have garnered lots of praise over the years. Can you tell us about them?

I have a teaching heart more than a coaching heart. The classroom today is a room, seven rows of 10 people, players, coaches, ancillary staff. It’s 30-45 minutes, chairs, desk, notebook with pens and highlighters.

Every single day, get in your seat and we basically talk about a concept that’s applicable to them that’s going to help them. It’s not agenda-driven. It’s just a way I can help them become better versions of themselves. I would say out of 100 classrooms, 40 percent are baseball and 60 percent have nothing to do with baseball… 

The more uncomfortable a topic is, the better it is for me because I feel like with kids in general, those things get left out, and they’re left to themselves to learn them. What better way to get involved in race, and sex, and talk about how to treat people than in a sporting environment where there’s a commonality of people?

I love it. It’s the power of blending people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, different genders, different races, different experiences, and this 62-year-old, White, New England American male is coming from a specific lens with no agenda just trying to help them along. I love the challenge it brings me and that you give to the people inside that room. 

Can you share the piece of advice your wife gave you about “being miserable” and how you acted on it?

At the end of the year, if there’s a state of depression, it’s the last meeting. It doesn’t matter if you win a National Championship. It’s over. You’re going 100 miles per hour, and it just comes to an end. 

Early in my career, the state of depression for me lasted a whole lot longer than it should’ve. We were traveling somewhere and she said, “If you’re only going to find success in winning the very last game, you’re going to die a very frustrated man, and we’re going to live a very tormented life. You’re going to have to find success in other ways.” 

Those other ways were creating an environment where you can help other people bring out their best and not necessarily have it associated with winning a lot of baseball games.

That brought a lot of reality to me at the time. You understand there’s a lot of randomness and luck to being a really good team. To take any credit for your luck is probably irresponsible. It’s how you run with your luck, how you accept the responsibility for it and making it the spirit for how you live.

Stop chasing what is out there and just move at the pace of what’s natural for your program — and build a culture that is going to be around for a long period of time.

If you enjoyed our interview with Daily Coach Network member Tim Corbin, you'll be glad to hear that we’re accepting new applications to join our community.

The Daily Coach Network, led by three-time Super Bowl-winning NFL executive Michael Lombardi and Naismith Basketball Hall-of-Fame Coach George Raveling, is a vetted membership community of sports executives, business leaders, and coaches who learn together and support each other to improve their team's performance.

Short on time? A total of 4 hours each month unlocks a world of unique learning experiences and connections. Apply today. 

Q&A Resources

Coach Tim Corbin ― Twitter | Instagram | Vanderbilt Athletics 

Let us know what you think...