Tim Corbin has reached the ultimate heights in college baseball. His Vanderbilt Commodores have won two national championships, including one a year ago, but their bid for back-to-back titles was derailed by COVID-19.
“Yeah, we’re in sports and yeah, it is too bad, but you know what, let’s move forward,” Corbin said. “There’s something positive that’s going to come from it.”
One positive thing is the way Corbin and his wife Maggie are using Twitter to shine the spotlight. An old Topps baseball card and Maggie’s imagination proved to be the impetus to create a daily lineup of heroes from all areas of the medical profession.
“I started to look at baseball cards and thought, ‘OK what about if we do it in a celebratory fashion with a baseball card?" And we’ve just put a face with a card and added some information so that they can be more public in the public eye and see what they do,” Corbin said.
The gesture couldn’t have come at a better time.
“You know it’s always their season,” Corbin said. “But their season right now is very intensified and you know where we’re located right next to the hospital and I get a pretty good view of what those people look like leaving the medical center and going to the medical center and there’s not a lot of normalcy right now. What they’re doing is high level stuff both physically and mentally and I’m sure it’s taxing.”
One of Corbin’s heroes is a huge Vanderbilt baseball fan who now works in Dallas. Dr. Monica Barbosa received her training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and now she focuses on internal medicine at UT Southwestern.
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Her reaction to the gesture? A tweet of her own, “Oh my goodness. Thank you so much Coach. You just made my year.”
“That’s great,” Corbin said. “I’m happy for Monica. Happy to do it, number one. Proud of her and how she’s responding to all of this. She’s a tough, tough person. I can see that. As a coach you know about motivational speeches but anything you can add to a person that will help their energy to save someone than that’s all good.”
