SHERIDAN — Sheridan is home to Arkansas’ latest high school softball dynasty.
In five years at the helm of the program, Tamara Strawn has led the Lady Yellowjackets to five state- championship games, winning the last four titles, and a record of 141-22 — a winning percentage of .865.
What’s the secret?
“I just try to instill that winning mindset — play to win, keep your composure, hold each other accountable, great work ethic,” Strawn said. “We know how to mix fun and work, and that’s a big part of it.
“We have support sister groups where we combine different grade levels just for them to learn about their teammates. We have scavenger hunts and weekly notebooks where they escape from the field and get to know each other. We have a weekly mindset of remembering our goals — not just athletics, but also life lessons.”
Strawn instituted that culture when she took over the program in 2015. She had arrived in the district in 2012 as head junior girls basketball coach.
It was a winding path, but she has found her place in Grant County.
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Strawn grew up in Conway County, where she played basketball and softball at Sacred Heart. After graduating in 1999, she attended a combined three semesters at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway with the idea of pursuing something in the health care field before she dropped out for marriage and motherhood.
Six years later, by then a single mom to daughter Carley, Strawn was ready to return to school.
“I was always just so involved and passionate and consumed with sports,” she said. “I always played women’s league basketball and softball and co-ed softball. I always loved sports, and I coached my daughter’s teams growing up.
“I thought, ‘This is what I’ve always loved to do.’ I knew I wanted to go to a job where I wasn’t ‘working,’ something I loved to go to every day. I knew when I went back what I wanted to do.”
At 27, she returned to UCA in 2008 to pursue her degree in kinesiology, which she earned in December 2011.
“Just life experiences and having a child made me grow up quick,” Strawn said. “That made me more experienced my first year of teaching and coaching than someone who comes in at 23.”
She started at Sheridan in July 2012 as junior high head basketball coach. She moved to softball in 2015.
Carley Strawn, now a junior, is the team’s catcher.
“The Lord knew what he was doing,” Coach Strawn said of her winding road. “I wanted to win state when I was in high school so bad, but it’s so much more rewarding to win with these girls and to win with my daughter. I’m just grateful for it.”
Strawn will finish her master’s degree from Harding University in Searcy later this month.
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Strawn followed Eddie Paul Woodall, who took the Lady Jackets to the state-championship game in 2014.
“He had laid a good foundation,” she said, “but I think sometimes being a female coach, you can do things a little different.”
Among her different tactics is the focus on team-building.
“Sometimes even I make fun of it, the corn stuff,” she said, chuckling. “But when teammates and coaches and everybody knows you care, they’ll run through brick walls for you. Care first and coach second is a good deal.”
Strawn said that in her life, she had experienced a time of bitterness and anger, and she didn’t like the person she was then.
“Since then, honestly, with the Lord, I’ve always tried to keep my glass half full,” she said. “We teach that words matter. We teach being positive. Being a teacher, you see a lot these kids go through. It goes back to caring first and coaching or teaching second.
“When somebody knows you care, they do a lot for you. Having a positive mindset and knowing words matter make a big difference.”
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In her first season, Strawn led the Lady Yellowjackets to the state-championship game, where they lost to Greenwood, 3-0.
“I can remember those,” she said of the rare losses.
Since then, though, the Lady Yellowjackets have prevailed four times. Senior first baseman Kassi Martin slapped a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the sixth for a 4-3 win over Greenwood to win the Class 5A title at the University of Arkansas’ Bogle Park.
“What’s neat is that our four seniors this year — [Martin, infielder Alicia Adams, second baseman/right fielder Claudia Benning and third baseman Bailee Hall] — it’s their fourth straight championship, by a final score of 4-3,” Strawn said. “It’s neat they went out with a big bang with the number four.”
Martin, who will play at Mid-America Christian University in Oklahoma City next year, earned MVP honors, two years after her sister Reagan Martin was named MVP after Sheridan beat Benton for the championship.
“I’m so happy that our senior year ended up the way it did,” Kassi Martin said. “We put in a lot of hard work to get four state titles in a row. We couldn’t have done it without God’s help.”
Strawn said this team was marked by perseverance.
“We had some phenomenal players [in 2018], and a lot of people thought we wouldn’t be as good,” she said, “but that never crossed their minds. They knew every year is a new year. They held all their teammates accountable.”
The team’s motto, she said, was “Be real.”
“Give constructive criticism,” she said. “They knew they had to address things, or it could be like a bad apple. Just to recognize that and be able to communicate is a big deal.”
In their 27-4 season, the Lady Jackets lost twice to Bentonville and once each to North Little Rock and Benton.
“I think we’re 14-1 against Benton the past three years,” Strawn said. “Last year, we beat them five times, and the year before, we beat them five times.”
The Lady Panthers prevailed April 16, 3-2.
“A loss against somebody like that is coming,” Strawn said. “We might’ve been a little disappointed, but we knew it was going to come sometime, and we were glad it came earlier in the season rather than later.
“We used a positive mindset. We grew from it and went on. We didn’t just hang on to it.”
So what’s next in 2020?
“We know the expectations and the winning mindset, the culture we have,” Strawn said. “We celebrate what we did, but we know we have another season, so it’s back to the drawing board.”