All We Hear is Purple: The Angry Farmer with Coach Heather Tarr

Hello and welcome to one of All We Hear is Purple’s bi-annual better-than-normal episodes. Granted, is our average episode that high of a bar? I mean... who’s to say... But fear not, dear listener, because this episode would be better than normal even if “normal” was a high bar.

That’s because today we’re joined by a certified cool person. What makes their coolness certifiable?

Well when you’re a former All-Pac-10 infielder, the all-time winningest UW coach across all sports, a national champion, the head coach for Team USA, and a general Redmond #icon (go Mustangs amiright?), that’s certifiably kickass. It’s basically science.

Oh, right — if you hadn’t figured it out by now, we’re talking about Washington Softball Head Coach Heather Tarr.

To start the episode, Gabey first spends like three minutes trying to remember how words work, because language is an imperfect way to express post-structuralist concepts AKA English is hard. From there we talk about:

• The human component of managing a program
• Husky Softball Stadium concession stand hot dogs
• Team America (and Seattle U) and coaching against former players and assistants
• Chris Petersen being a wise, Gandalf-like figure
• The evolution of recruiting the last 15 years
• The evolution of batting the last 15 years
• The psychology of going from high school depth player to college star
• What do Gabbie Plain and Danielle Lawrie have in common in their ass-kickingness despite them being, from the outside looking in, complete opposites?
• Differences offensively between ‘22 Washington and ‘21 Washington
• Becoming a head coach before turning 30
• Andrew’s favorite author of late
• Ozark. Also Clueless.

Plus, a cameo from Cat Tarr — the tragedy of this episode being that podcasting is sadly an auditory medium and thus none of you get to see him. So you’ll have to just trust us, he was a great cat right there.

Enjoy!

But seriously, extreme thanks to Coach Tarr — sure, for joining our dorky little podcast — but more than that for her almost-20 years of being an inimitable influence in the community with this rad-ass program that’s repped the PNW more consistently than any other pro or collegiate team this century. And while we’re at it, shouts out to all the players and assistant coaches who’ve been a part of that both on the field and in the community.

As always: Do good things, don’t do bad things, and bow down to Washington.