It’s a well-established fact that people in the South absolutely love sports and that is especially true at Auburn University.
If the administration puts together a competitive team, Auburn fans will show up to watch it. It doesn’t even matter what sport is being played. Tiger fans support practically every organized physical activity as long as they’re wearing an orange and blue jersey. The teams don’t really even have to be that good. The football team over the last four years is evidence of that.
One sport that has become a fan favorite over the last decade is softball. The program debuted on the Plains in 1997 under the direction of Tina Deese. She laid the groundwork and nurtured the team from its infancy.
Deese was at the helm for 17 years until 2013 leading the program to the postseason nine times, but never passed the Regional round. They only posted a winning record in the SEC four times. I was a student at Auburn in 1997 and, to be honest, I didn’t even know we had a softball team.
Deese deserves a lot of credit for building the program from scratch, but things truly exploded when Clint Myers was hired in 2014 from Arizona State. He was a prolific baseball and softball coach winning national titles in both sports. His impact was incredible and immediate, taking Auburn to the postseason four times in four years.
The women made their first appearance in the World Series in 2015 finishing as runner-up to Oklahoma. They made it back to the WCWS in 2016 and set a record for wins with 58. Unfortunately, the Myers era would end prematurely due to an inappropriate relationship between pitching coach Corey Myers and a player.
Mickey Dean took over in 2018 and led the Tigers to the playoffs every year until he retired in 2024. The program was solid under his leadership, but never made it past the first-round of the playoffs and only finished with one winning record in the SEC.
I think it’s fair to say some of the enthusiasm around Auburn softball diminished during the Dean tenure. The program needed an infusion of excitement and Athletics Director John Cohen accomplished that mission hiring not one, but two head coaches. Auburn’s new husband and wife co-head coaches, Chris and Kate Malveaux, will begin a new era of Auburn softball on Friday with the Tiger Invitational at Jane B Moore Field.
I suppose technically they began back in the fall, but this is no longer an exhibition. The Malveaux’s were both assistant coaches at the University of Tennessee, which just so happen to win back to back SEC regular-season titles in 2023 and 2024.
Chris is a highly respected offensive mind in collegiate softball and saw the Volunteers set record offensive numbers under his tutelage. Kate’s focus will be on the defensive side working with the players in the field.
When Auburn was at their best under Clint Myers, they were a power hitting juggernaut. College softball will always revolve around dynamic pitching, but prolific offenses are the order of the day and the Tigers will need to improve their numbers from the past several years.
They’ll also begin this year without Mattie Penta, one of the best pitchers in the country, who graduated last year. The first thing the Malveaux’s did was hire a top-notch pitching coach in Ryker Chason. He was an assistant at Ole Miss before becoming the director of pitching growth at OGX Softball in Illinois. It’s a company that specializes in softball training and performance using cutting-edge science and data. Chris and Kate have added some dynamic pieces to the roster and have already begun to recapture the excitement for Auburn softball.
Andy Graham is a co-host of Auburn Blitz and his column appears here weekly.