# @welivesoftball_ on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Dcxjak7Ds9H
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69909511-welivesoftball-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/ebdb50bd56.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-02T06:05:59.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** We Live Softball (@welivesoftball_) — https://gondola.cc/welivesoftball_

## Caption

We sat down with Coach Taryne Mowatt-McKinney to talk about some of the biggest lessons she’s learned throughout her coaching career.

One of the most important: getting to know your players.

For Mowatt-McKinney, those relationships do more than strengthen the connection between a coach and athlete. They help coaches make better decisions and, over time, build the trust needed when those decisions aren’t easy.

A player may not always agree in the moment, but when that relationship has been built, Mowatt-McKinney says there’s an understanding that the decision is being made in the player’s best interest or the best interest of the team.

It’s a perspective shaped by a career spent at the highest levels of the sport.

Mowatt-McKinney helped Arizona win back-to-back national championships as a pitcher in 2006 and 2007, earning Women’s College World Series Most Outstanding Player honors in 2007. Now a coach at Mississippi State, she helped lead the Bulldogs to the program’s first Women’s College World Series appearance in 2026. This summer, she also served as the Chicago Bandits’ pitching coach in the AUSL.

Most recently, Mowatt-McKinney was named D1Softball’s 2026 Assistant Coach of the Year and Pitching Coach of the Year, becoming the first coach to win both honors in the same year. 

Her biggest takeaway after years of playing and coaching: know your players, build the relationship, and earn their trust.

#WeLiveSoftball

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## Tags

welivesoftball

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