TUCSON, Ariz. -- There are things about Taylor McQuillin's life at the University of Arizona that Taryne Mowatt is uniquely qualified to understand. Only someone who lived it can completely appreciate all that comes with being the pitching ace in one of college softball's iconic programs, for one.
Or the relative merits of the local lunch options, for another.
Gathered recently near the bullpen inside Hillenbrand Stadium on a typically sun-drenched afternoon, McQuillin and other pitchers settled into a conversation not about championship expectations or Pac-12 lineups, but the bona fides of a campus eatery. Such debates might normally leave a new pitching coach with little to contribute; however, Mowatt is not most new hires. The eatery was smaller a decade ago, when she stopped by before or after her own bullpen sessions, but the menu hasn't changed much. Forget the big stuff. You understand a lot about a place if you understand the food.
Even after the graduation of one of the NCAA's all-time home run leaders, Arizona enters a new season with ample offense. Jessie Harper, Dejah Mulipola and Alyssa Palomino combined to hit 47 home runs as first-year players in 2017. Louisiana-Lafayette transfer Aleah Craighton adds still more power. The Wildcats will score runs. Whether or not a program that reached the Women's College World Series in 22 of 23 seasons between 1988 and 2010 makes it back to Oklahoma City for the first time in eight years will come down to how many runs it allows others to score.
No one will have a greater say in that than McQuillin, who inherits the role of ace. And no one will have more influence as to how McQuillin fares than the pitching coach who was called home to Tucson.
"Every team that's going to go a long way has to have a pitcher they can count on," Arizona coach Mike Candrea said. "And I think Taylor is one of those kids."
It's the same sort of thing he said about Mowatt not so long ago.
"We're trying to get back to Oklahoma City because it's been a while since Arizona has been there." Taylor McQuillin
As a junior, it was Mowatt who was asked to do the work in the circle to keep defending champion Arizona atop the sport. An ace for the first time, she followed in the substantial footsteps of All-American Alicia Hollowell. After an unforgettably long week at the 2007 Women's College World Series, Mowatt earned an ESPY and a legend's status, while the Wildcats won their eighth title. Now she's back in Tucson to help McQuillin chase the elusive ninth title.
"I think Taylor is in a similar situation as I was going into our junior years," Mowatt said. "She's had [Pac-12 pitcher of the year] Danielle O'Toole ahead of her, and that was kind of similar to me. Alicia was a senior when I was a sophomore, and then when Alicia graduated it was like, 'Hey, you are now the No. 1 and you are our go-to.' "
After brief stints pitching professionally, Mowatt established herself as a rising star in coaching. A job at NCAA Division II Cal Baptist that allowed her to work with her younger sister led to a position at Ole Miss, where she mentored not just junior college transfer Kaitlin Lee, last spring's SEC sensation, but National Pro Fastpitch signee Madi Osias before that. So when Arizona pitching coach Stacy Iveson transitioned to an administrative role after last season, Candrea called Mowatt. Ostensibly he sought to gauge her interest in returning. In reality, he already knew the answer.
Mowatt never made any secret of her desire to eventually return to Tucson in some capacity, softball or otherwise. The surprise, at least to anyone on the scene a decade earlier, is that she returns as a coach. Unlike Arizona assistant Caitlin Lowe, the former Olympian who is her colleague, friend and former teammate, Mowatt didn't carry herself in college like someone a decade older than she was. More like someone who aged coaches prematurely.
"Usually when my phone rings and it says 'Coach,' I used to be in trouble," Mowatt said. "Anytime I would see his name on there I would say, 'What did I do?' And I would go through in my head the possibilities. Now when I see it, it's strategy and 'What do you want the pitchers doing today? Who do you want pitching live?' "
Staying in the family is nothing new in Tucson. Iveson was a member of Candrea's first four teams at Arizona. Hollowell was the pitching coach for a time. And Candrea credits former All-American and former pitching coach Nancy Evans for helping transform Mowatt from a thrower into a complete pitcher. He trusts the people he knows. He counts on them to connect the program's present to its past, all the more now that trips to Oklahoma City aren't annual occurrences. Yet Mowatt might be the unlikeliest returnee because neither of them had any inclination that coaching was in her future when she left Tucson the first time.
"Caitlin, obviously, is one I've always put on a pedestal because of the way she approached the game and approaches life," Candrea said. "That was a no-brainer. Taryne, on the other hand, I had questions. And you do sometimes with athletes. Not all great athletes end up being great coaches. For some, it's kind of [obvious]. Others, you have to sit back and watch and see how they progress as people because they're a lot different at 34 than 24, you would hope."
In this case, that journey of self-discovery means the pitcher McQuillin watched on television a decade ago is now the mentor she calls "Coach T" (although, for the record, she is only 31 years old).
"The fact that she's still young, she has that young mind and fresh feeling of what it's like to be in a World Series and play at that level," McQuillin said of what she's learned about Mowatt. "That's our goal. We're trying to get back to Oklahoma City because it's been a while since Arizona has been there."
Last year was supposed to change that. Arizona won the Pac-12 for the first time since Mowatt was the ace and earned the right to host a super regional. It even won the opening game of that best-of-three series against Baylor and led the second game. But Baylor rallied, against O'Toole in relief of McQuillin in the second game and then against McQuillin in relief of O'Toole in the finale. O'Toole moved on to Team USA. The World Series drought remained.
That McQuillin was in the circle for the inning that eliminated Arizona was far from fitting after a sophomore season in which she quietly found her footing as O'Toole's understudy. One of the most highly touted recruits in the country coming out of Mission Viejo, California, it was McQuillin's freshman season that took its toll. While peers such as Florida's Kelly Barnhill and Oklahoma's Sydney Romero took softball by storm as freshmen, McQuillin didn't embarrass herself with a 12-8 record and 3.12 ERA, but also wasn't a factor by the time a super regional arrived that season.
"My freshman year was pretty rough, definitely not what everybody was expecting, I'm sure," McQuillin said. "After freshman year I kind of had to say, 'OK, why am I here? Why did I go through all of that? Why am I doing what I'm doing?' There had to be a reason because I would have given up a long time ago if there wasn't.
"It's the willingness to compete and the want to win and be in a team environment."
That ought to sound at least a little familiar.
Coach and student approach pitching from different ends of the philosophical spectrum. Mowatt took games as they came. She had the confidence to throw whatever pitch was called without a second thought. And as a propensity for pitching out of self-inflicted jams indicated, a little chaos never bothered her. McQuillin embraces order. She likes a plan, likes to know what comes next.
Yet they are in other ways ideally matched. Far from the imposing figure that contemporaries like Hollowell, Monica Abbott or Cat Osterman were in the circle, the 5-foot-6 Mowatt always had to prove she belonged. McQuillin, due to a condition called Duane syndrome, was born blind in her left eye. She didn't talk publicly about it until late in high school, but coaches always knew and she never felt unfairly judged for it. To that end, Candrea said it was never a factor in Arizona's recruiting evaluation. In an absolute sense, she is at a disadvantage when it comes to matters like depth perception and peripheral vision.
"I've never known what it's like to see out of two eyes, I've never known what it's like to have 20-20 vision out of both eyes," McQuillin said. "This was my life, this was how I was born and how I grew up living. I don't think it was a setback, but I think it's definitely something that people are kind of in awe about because playing softball with one eyes seems hard from sitting in the stands. But I've never known any different."
Still, to an even greater degree than a diminutive strikeout pitcher, she had to do more than most to master pitching well enough to end up at a place like Hillenbrand Stadium.
"The thing about her is she knows what she wants," Mowatt said. "She is very decisive on what she wants, and I think as a pitcher that's a great thing."
If she still has some things to learn, it's not as if she has a history of shrinking from challenges.
"We have sometimes more confidence in kids than they have in themselves," Candrea said. "And some hide it better than others. I think Taylor has grown up a lot. I think Taylor is a kid that in high school was 'It.' She wanted the ball and did a nice job. I think she's at that stage right now at Arizona that she's ready to step up and be the kid that will take the accountability and take the opportunities to be under the pressure situations in the big games."
It can't hurt that the person helping her knows exactly what that feels like.