Three months ago, Vanderbilt head baseball coach Tim Corbin made news by making waves: he publicly declared that newly-NCAA-approved composite bats should be be banned from the collegiate game. Publicly, many coaches and journalists sneered and said Corbin was over-reacting.

Today, Corbin was vindicated.

In an unprecedented move, the NCAA reversed its decision and recommended that composite bats be banned from competition beginning with the 2010 season.

"After significant dialog and review of research collected during the Division I Baseball Championship, the committee is proposing an immediate and indefinite moratorium on the use of composite barreled bats," said a press release from the NCAA this morning. "The committee believes this action is needed in order to protect the integrity of the game and to enhance the safety of the student-athletes.

"Before the committee's recent meeting, numerous concerns were voiced by the membership with a request for action. After a thorough review of compliance testing and a review of the improved performance of composite bats, often exceeding NCAA acceptable limits, these concerns have proven to be valid. Therefore, the committee has decided to put an immediate and indefinite moratorium on the use of composite bats in NCAA competition."

"This is a step that needed to be taken," said Corbin to VandySports.com this morning. "This particular bat (composite) was 'tamperable' both innocently and knowingly. Because of this, the bat had an effect on the ball that was very see-able in distance, speed, flight and lack of sound.

"Subsequently, it became more of a weapon than a typical college aluminum baseball bat. The bat resembled the trampoline effect of the mid 90s minus-5s and offensive numbers were steadily increasing in that direction (during that era). More importantly, it's effect was sooner or later going to cause injury to a participant...for that reason alone, the bat needed to be disbanded."

Composite bats contain a carbon-wood fiber interior, with an aluminum shell. Corbin had claimed that the bats were being artificially altered through a process called "rolling." Bat rolling places the bat between two hard rubber wheels, and the user rolls the bat back and forth. The process -- which takes only minutes -- dramatically and immediately increases the "trampoline" effect of the bat.

Post-rolling testing indicates that resulting ball speeds can increase as much as 20 miles per hour, resulting in as much as 40 additional feet on the length of fly balls.

Bat rolling has been widely practiced throughout amateur softball ever since composite bats were introduced, and homemade bat rolling machines are available online at eBay and private web sites.

Composite bats also differ from aluminum and wood bats because they make almost no sound when they hit a baseball. That fact alone made Corbin concerned about reaction time for pitchers, which stand the closest to the batter.

Many NCAA coaches that used the new composite bats claimed they were not tampering with them. However, since the bats were approved and used in NCAA games, home run numbers skyrocketed to levels not seen since the introduction of new baseball standards a decade ago.

Questions about the new composite-barrel bats became a public controversy just weeks after they were approved last spring. Easton, the first manufacturer to formally release a composite bat at the collegiate level, introduced their Stealth bat at the end of the 2008 season.

Fresno, a four-seed, used the bat in the NCAA Tournament and won the NCAA Baseball World Series after posting eye-popping home run numbers. Fresno defeated SEC member Georgia in the title series. At the time, Georgia -- a Nike-sponsored school -- was not using composite bats.

Georgia head coach Dave Perno immediately went public with his belief that the bats were illegal and should be banned. Perno's statements eventually led to a law suit by Nike against the Georgia athletics department. Since then, Perno kept quiet, saying during the SEC Baseball Tournament that he had been "muzzled." Likewise, a Georgia athletics department radio broadcaster who publicly echoed Perno's criticisms in game broadcasts, was later dismissed from the Bulldog radio team.

That left Corbin as one of the few voices against the bats — and an easy target for journalists who felt he was using them as an excuse for his team's pitching struggles down the stretch of the 2009 season.

Today, the media is playing a different tune.

The NCAA first refused to admit that tampering was even possible. But as Corbin refused to back off his comments, and media began to pick up the story, word began spreading behind the scenes that many schools were in fact tampering with composite bats.

Corbin said professional scouts that had attended Vanderbilt games had clocked batted ball speeds from composite bats well in excess of 100 miles per hour. Corbin received added media scrutiny after he publicly questioned a bat used by Tennessee's Cody Hawn. Hawn used an Easton composite bat to hit a late-season home run against VU that hit the top of the Hawkins Field center field light pole -- a distance Corbin estimated was well in excess of 500 feet. Corbin claimed that distance was physically impossible to reach with a bat that did not dramatically exceed the NCAA's testing limits.

Two weeks later, The Southeastern Conference put official attention to the issue when they announced that all composite bats used in the SEC Tournament would be tested. After the announcement, many SEC players chose to not bring their composite bats to the tournament, which caused public suspicion to mount.

Then, the NCAA announced that they would begin testing composite bats for the NCAA Tournament, and would disqualify bats that exceeded the approved maximum trampoline effect. Today, the NCAA revealed that three-fourths of the bats they tested exceeded their approved testing limits.

Throughout the controversy, Corbin backed his words with action: Despite the fact that Vanderbilt's bast sponsor, DiMarini, released a composite bat, Corbin refused to use it.

Today, Corbin's accusations were validated — and the Vanderbilt head coach has been vindicated.

"I have stood by this thought since the beginning of the season and based on what I have seen played out during the 2009 schedule, I feel even stronger about it," he remarked.