(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
TEMPE – Nearly six weeks after a team workout on Aug. 20 that left second-year defenseman Matthew Mayich on life support, Arizona State head coach Greg Powers was placed on administrative leave. With ASU needing a coach to lead its bench just days before, the program looked internally for a temporary solution.
Assistant coach Mike Corbett will take over Powers’ position for the season-opening series at Lindenwood on Oct. 2 and 3. Corbett joined ASU for the 2024-2025 season and was present at the Aug. 20 workout, according to a 26-page letter seven players sent to ASU president Michael Crow on Monday.
“The head coach and his assistant coaches were all on the field on August 20, all remain in their positions, and together they decide our playing time, scholarship levels, and roster status,” the players wrote. “No one has separated us from them since that morning.”
Powers is currently the only coach on leave, as longtime friend of Powers and associate coach Alex Hicks remains with the team alongside Corbett and assistant coach Jimmy Mullin, who was hired this year.
Before coming to ASU ahead of its first season in the NCHC, Corbett spent three seasons as an assistant coach with Quinnipiac, winning a national championship with the team in 2023. Corbett’s most recent head coaching job was at Alabama-Huntsville from 2013 to 2020, finishing with a 48-181-2 record and no winning seasons throughout his seven-year tenure.
“Mike has been someone I’ve always wanted to work with since we went Division I,” Powers said when Corbett was hired in July 2024. “His recent success at Quinnipiac in helping them get two Elite Eights and winning a National Championship is something I know he wants to bring here to ASU.”
Three months after his hiring in July, Corbett was pulled over driving in Scottsdale a little after 1 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2024, eight days after they opened the 2024 season and approximately three hours after ASU’s shootout win over Michigan. Corbett drove over a curb and weaved over a lane line, according to a Scottsdale Police Department report.
Corbett showed signs of intoxication, including his breath smelling like beer, slurring his words and his eyes being bloodshot. Corbett admitted to the officer that he had been drinking, saying he had two or three beers in his office, according to the Athletic.
When the officer tried to administer a breathalyzer test, Corbett refused.
“I’m going to lose my job if I blow into that,” Corbett said to the officer.
Corbett was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and taken into the local police station for blood tests, which showed blood alcohol levels of 0.091 and 0.094. He was charged with two counts of DUI for a blood alcohol level over 0.08 and impaired to the slightest degree, along with failure to drive in a single lane, according to The Athletic.
Corbett pleaded guilty to these charges in a misdemeanor court in Dec. 2024. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of operating while intoxicated in Aug. 2006, according to Michigan court records.
On Thursday, ASU’s athletic director Graham Rossini said in an interview with Arizona Sports’ Dave Burns and John Gambadoro that the team is searching for an interim head coach and could name one “as early as next week”. In the meantime, Corbett will fill the role.
