Corbin photo courtesy of Front Office Sports
A late gentleman, whom I had a lot of respect for, told me in 2007 he had a football coach at Ramsay high school in Birmingham named William “Cannonball” White. He said one of the most honorable comments you can say about another man. “He did the right thing all the time.”
That seems to be the case with Tim Corbin. With several of these coaches letting players slide for rules violations, Corbin stands firm in his beliefs and his values.
Yesterday, Coach Corbin suspended 4 players indefinitely from the team for “failing to meet team standards.” There was no report of what these players actually did, but that’s not really relevant. They broke the rules laid down by Corbin and they paid the price. That is honorable, highly respectable, the right thing to do by our baseball coach And Corbs has done it before with other players.
Xavier Turner, our starting 3rd baseman three years ago as a freshman, was suspended for the season two years ago. Not sure exactly what Xavier did either, but he never made it back to the team, unfortunately. Philip Pfeifer, who is now in the Atlanta Braves organization, was suspended for the rest of the 2014 season and missed out on the national championship for rules violations. Don’t know exactly what either did and it would be irresponsible and disrespectful to both players to speculate. Regardless, Corbin held firm to his values and his rules. He did the right thing. That should always be the case with every coach, with every person. Not always the case.
Sunday, freshman Drake Fellows, who had been pitching very well, was supposed to start and help the Commodores earn a series sweep of Texas A&M. But he, sophomore starting shortstop Alonzo Jones, freshman starting right fielder Harrison Ray, both of whom had just become starters, and freshman left hander Zach King, were all suspended for the game with no timetable for their return. We lost 6-4, but Coach Corbin was sending a much better message to these players than they cost us the game. He was telling them there are rules they have to live by if they get the privilege to play in his program and if they don’t, they’re not going to play for us. Those are not just college lessons, those are life lessons.
Some other coaches, Bob Stoops, Nick Saban, Bill Self, Roy Williams and John Calipari could take a lesson from Coach Corbin. Stoops allowed his player, Joe Mixon, to play in the Sugar Bowl after being caught on video hitting a woman. Then recently, his starting quarterback, Baker Mayfield, was arrested for public drunkenness. No word on what kind of discipline Mayfield will get. Saban had three players arrested for pot and guns last season, but there were no suspensions for games, just “internal discipline.” Bill Self had all kinds of issues on his team with alleged assault on a woman by one of his players, and many other allegations of misconduct, but Self, like quite a few others, let’s “the legal system handle it.” And it’s funny how a prosecutor or a judge conveniently lets these guys slide. Many times, the lawyer or the judge is a fan of the team. Jameis Winston is a perfect example of that.
Roy Williams uses that folksy, salt of the earth talk, but his players have been involved in an academic fraud for many years. John Calipari had Marcus Camby at UMass who accepted cash and had a prostitute, among other things, and the school was fined $151,000. Then at Memphis, Calipari allowed Derrick Rose to play and help Memphis advance to the 2008 national championship game, while Rose was involved in academic fraud. The NCAA expunged Memphis’ season and forced them to give back the money to the NCAA, which was a substantial amount. Calipari took off for Kentucky.
Those last two examples were written about by the classic writer for the New York Post, Phil Muchnick.
The final example is the glorification of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, who both have been involved in cheating of the rules scandals. it’s funny how that gets swept under the rug when they win another Super Bowl. Belichick has a serial problem for cheating, including Spygate, when he had a cameraman film a New York Jets practice, and rival coaches are always shredding their game plans when they’re at New England, for fear that the Patriots will get ahold of them.
Brady was suspended for, in all probability, getting his ball boy to deflate the footballs before the Patriots playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2015. He was suspended for 4 games but deified when he won the Super Bowl and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was vilified throughout the deal. It was misplaced blame. The Patriots are known to break rules. They shouldn’t be honored by the media.
I have to admit, while the College football playoff and the NCAA tournament is going on, I can get lost in the competition of it, but Mushnick’s super article brought it back to reality for me. I’m glad he wrote that. It’s a good perspective on sports and life.
But Corbs seems to always do the right thing. I hope he always will. I expect he will.
There is no word on how long these players will be suspended, but if they’ve acted really badly, they deserve to be off the team for a while.
Vandy dropped to 3-3 in the SEC and 16-9 overall.
Mason lands 2nd commit for 2018
Vanderbilt football landed its second recruit in high 3 star athlete Miles Jones out of American Heritage High School in Plantation, Florida. Miles is a 5’9″, 173 , and Mason and the staff look to make him a slot back, a Darrius Sims-type player. Miles is lightning fast and takes quite a few to the house. He’s excellent on film. He’s not only fast, he’s strong and tough. Jones, according to Jesse Johnson of Vandy247, accounted for 1,317 yards during his junior season, gaining 585 yards on the ground with 5 TDs, and catching 28 passes for 405 yards and a 7. Jones also returned 12 kicks for 327 yards and a 7. He helped the Patriots go 14-0 and capture the 2016 Class 5A state championship.
Jones chose us over offers from Georgia, Kentucky, Miss. State, West Virginia and Wisconsin among others. This is an excellent pickup for Mason and the program. Miles will excel.
Patrick Martin
VU sophomore men’s golfer Patrick Martin won the Schenkel Invitational last weekend for his first victory as a Commodore. The Birmingham, Alabama native shot -12, including a 66 on the final day, -6, on the par 72 course in Statesboro, GA. Patrick was named SEC Golfer of the week last week. We finished 3rd as a team, with Florida winning it, but we were without our number one player, Matthias Schwab, who was playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational for winning an amateur sportsmanship award sponsored by the tournament. Matthias didn’t make the cut at the Palmer, but it was a good experience for him and it’s good to have him back with the team as we prepare for the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, TN. this weekend. Good stuff for our players. We are now ranked 3rd in the country by Golfstat.com, the premier ranking service for NCAA golf. Southern Cal is No.1 and Oklahoma State is No.2. Florida is 6 and LSU is 9th.
Women’s tennis shines again
The VU women’s tennis team moved to 6-1 in the SEC with a 6-1 victory over Alabama on the road yesterday. We won the doubles, and Georgina Sellyn, Astra Sharma, Sydney Campbell, Fernanda Contreras and Emma Kurtz all won their singles matches.
We moved to 11-5 overall. The Dores return home this weekend to host Missouri at 4 PM CT on Friday and Arkansas at 1 PM Sunday at the Currey Tennis Center.