Vanderbilt baseball’s first lady found strength as single mom – The Tennessean

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The straw that broke the camel’s back: a cute cocker spaniel puppy named CiCi.

Maggie Blatt, a divorced mom struggling to hold down a job and raise two girls by herself, decided her daughters deserved a doggie about 20 years ago. So Mom brought home CiCi, who promptly started chewing on everything in the house.

Three weeks later, Maggie found another family to adopt the puppy — and then she told her girls that someone had stolen the puppy.

Maggie put up “lost dog” fliers around the neighborhood, even took her girls out to look for CiCi.

“This is terrible. I’m going straight to hell for this,” said Corbin, 54, now Maggie Corbin and married for 10 years to Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin, whose team has vied this week for back-to-back College World Series championships in Omaha, Neb.

THE TENNESSEAN

Vanderbilt not letting up with one more win needed

It was a low point in raising her two daughters, Molly, now 30, and Hannah, 27. But Corbin says her years as a single mom taught her to be resilient and independent. They also taught her that she would make mistakes — like she did with the dog.

“I broke my children’s heart, and I cried to them. But it was complete self-preservation,” Corbin said.

Still, she added, “I beat myself up for years for that.”

Corbin grew up in tiny Vicksburg, Mich., outside Kalamazoo, where she started working at age 12 as a roller-skating carhop at her dad’s A&W food stand.

Corbin also was a mean tennis player, and she eventually earned a scholarship to play for College of Charleston. That’s where she fell for Greg Blatt, a basketball coach at a nearby college. He was 15 years older.

“Maybe that works out sometimes, but sometimes it doesn’t. I think it was too young to get married,” Corbin said.

As she walked down the aisle a week after college graduation, Corbin was haunted by feelings that the wedding was a terrible idea.

Things went from bad to worse.

“As a good Catholic girl, you try to make your marriage work, and then you have children because you’re Catholic and you think that’ll help the marriage work.”

THE TENNESSEAN

Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin: a father to many

The family lived for a while around Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., where her husband got a job in the basketball program — and where a hardworking, dedicated guy named Tim Corbin was baseball coach.

Maggie Corbin loved being a mom, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would end up divorced, would have to tell her little adorable daughters that Mommy and Daddy were splitting.

The girls were 4 and 7 when the divorce was finalized. Corbin remembers the exhilaration of being free — and the fear of being a divorced parent.

“I wanted their lives to be good. I didn’t want to have the label of broken home for my two girls. I wanted to make a home that felt good, not broken.”

While those thoughts churned in her head, Corbin also was thunderstruck by another.

“I got that independent feeling that I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna raise strong, independent women. They have a mom who doesn’t drown in fear.”

She kept the girls in the same school. She hired baby sitters. She eventually became director of sports marketing at her alma mater in Charleston. Lots of college students helped Corbin take care of her daughters. And her ex-husband and his relatives interacted regularly with the girls.

“Obviously there were meltdowns and they got tired of frozen chicken tenders and tater tots. And I had my share of meltdowns, too,” Corbin said.

“I think humor is just the best way to get through just about anything. I have a great sense of humor, my daughters have a great sense of humor.

“When life sometimes crumbles around you, kindness and humor usually do the trick.”

A friend at Clemson said he needed an assistant baseball coach and Maggie Corbin remembered that hardworking guy from Presbyterian College. She recommended Tim Corbin for the Clemson job, and he got it.

Tim and Maggie Corbin started dating in the mid-1990s, and Tim Corbin loved those two girls like his own.

“Life got much better when Tim Corbin entered the picture. He brought a ton of joy to us.”

But those single-mom days taught Maggie Corbin a lot.

“I would often say, ‘No one’s died. We’re OK, tomorrow’s a do-over. If today is miserable, tomorrow is a whole new day.’ “

Reach Brad Schmitt at 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.