Tina Deese has softball blood.
Deese, Auburn's softball head coach in her 14th season, comes from an athletic family in which her two brothers played baseball and her sister won Olympic gold in softball.
Growing up in Huntington Beach, Calif., Deese started softball at the age of 6, where she grew into a fast-pitch style pitcher.
While a student-athlete at Golden West College, Deese led her team to a California State championship in 1983 and was named the California State Most Valuable Player.
Her success rolled over to Florida State, where Deese attended college in 1984.
"(FSU) was a slow-pitch program converted to a fast-pitch program," Deese said.
During her first season as a Seminole, Deese led the nation in strikeouts and was named the Lady Seminoles MVP while contributing to her team's state championship that season.
After graduating from FSU with a Bachelor of Science in leisure services and studies, Deese moved on to coach at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in human performance and kinesiology.
"(Coaching) just fell in my lap," Deese said. "Softball was developing in the area, and I had the fast-pitch experience growing up on the West Coast, and one thing led to another."
After playing four years for Deese, senior infielder Kyndall White said she knows what Deese brings to the diamond.
"She's a very passionate coach," White said. "She really cares about her players. She is definitely all about winning."
In her eight seasons at Huntingdon, Deese led her team to seven-straight winning seasons.
Deese then moved on to Auburn, where she has been for the past 13 years.
In 2002, she was named co-SEC coach of the year.
Deese and her husband, Allen, have been together for 22 years and have a 16-year-old son, Kyler, who plays baseball, and a 12-year-old daughter, Jessi.
Being there for her family is important to Deese, which can be challenging with the demands of her job.
"For me, it's the family element--trying to keep a good balance of family and work," Deese said. "That's been tough to balance. It's getting a little bit easier now that my children are older.
"That's huge, and of course, playing in the SEC, we spend a lot of time recruiting and scouting and all of those kinds of things."
Deese has three dogs: Coach, chocolate Lab; Shortstop, shih tzu; and Dottie, a Yorkie who gets her name from a character in the women's baseball movie, "A League of Their Own."
Deese's family is never too far away from the action.
"(Allen) is extremely supportive," she said. "He does a lot with my team in terms of cooking on recruiting weekends. He's just been really involved with our girls.
"They all enjoy him, and he's one of the topics of conversation."
The team has been on the receiving end of Allen's cooking on more than one occasion.
"Allen will always cook for us when we have big games and will tailgate," White said. "Any downtime (Deese) gets, she spends it with (her family), or they're going to come to the field to spend it with us. She's a really big family person and incorporates everything in the softball program with her family. Family is always first with her."
White, criminology major and member of the SEC Honor Roll in 2010, is an example of what Deese thinks Auburn has to offer student-athletes.
"I think Auburn does a great job graduating their athletes," Deese said. "They're well educated when they leave here and have a sense of pride for their University, of what they did while they were here."
Deese looks forward to what the future holds for her team and for her family.
"I see a trip to Oklahoma City," Deese said. "And I see myself sitting in the ballpark--hopefully, eventually at a Division 1, SEC ballpark--watching my son play ball with my little girl on my right."
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