JW: Born in Tulsa. Tulsa is coming to play Fresno State football tomorrow. Any thoughts or feelings on that game?

GB: Oh no, really? No man, we love the Hurricane ball at home. Those guys are good guys. Good organization. This [Fresno State] is a classy organization, so it should be one of those great games where all the fans come in and the fans from Tulsa are sweet, straight-up people. So it’s going to be a great weekend where the most important thing are those kids on the field. Because you guys have the same mindset, this should be a great weekend.

JW: You released “We Shall be Free” in 1992. How important do you think that song’s message is given the state of the country today?

GB: Yes, I’m going to say this and I love it. Every day that song became more true, more true. Every day today it remains just to be more true and more true. Now, let’s add songs like “The Change” with it. Lets add songs like “People Loving People” with it. It’s about tolerance. It’s about trying to understand. I think our biggest problem as people is we think we know each other.

We have no clue what the other person that might be raised exactly like us–same color skin, everything–we have no clue what they are going through, even though we think we do. Now, multiply it by different sex, different color skin, different religious preference. It gets wacky. So the thing is just tolerance, understanding patience. There was a great line during the Olympics that said patience is an action, so if you want to take action, sometimes that best action is patience.

JW: You’ve played many different roles: the baseball player, the singer. You’ve done many different things: philanthropist, dad and now you’re grandpa. So what is that role like? ­

GB: I don’t know because my baby, little August, had her child so young in her life that I’ve still not got all of my baby girl out of me yet, right? So when I know K is coming, when I know her daughter is coming, I think I get so excited that I know her mom is coming because they’re inseparable. So wherever you see one, you see the other.

They’re kind of–it’s odd, and somebody ­in my place will get this, they’re so close in age, it’s almost like you have two daughters, instead of a daughter and her daughter. It’s sweet, but, again, man, it’s girls. I don’t know what it is, but everything in my house is girls. The dogs are girls; everything and so it’s pretty cool. I feel very lucky.

JW: Who do you have in the Super Bowl?

GB: Well, I’m an Oklahoma State graduate. Oklahoma State Cowboys everything. Super Bowl? I’m going to have to go with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. I bleed orange.

JW: You and Garth worked together before there was a marriage. You guys were married to different people. There were other relationships, but did you guys know there was some kind of chemistry that was deeper than a professional performance relationship?

TY: We were friends for a really long time, so there was always a deep friendship. I’ve always had great respect for him, I’ve always liked him. I always liked the guy that he was, but we really didn’t see each other very much in those early years, except for if he called to sing on a record. It was always, always fun.

Always enjoyed myself in the studio with him because he is who you see. He is always nice, and I really did think, ‘Man, nobody’s that nice,’ the other shoe is going to have to fall with this guy at some point. But it never did. I think that was one of the nice things when we finally did decide to try this as a couple, was that usually in a relationship you jump in. You know, I’m sure you’ve done that, I know I’ve done that before. You jump in and a few months down the line you’re like ‘I don’t even like this guy, what was I thinking?’

For us, because we had such a strong friendship, we had been down that. We knew so much about each other that maybe we wouldn’t have had that kind of friendship if we had just jumped into dating. So it was nice. It was good. Then the downside of that is that your friend knows all your dark secrets. You’re like, ‘I wish he didn’t know that about me,’ so it really was a great foundation to start.

JW: Little over 10 years ago, Garth proposed to you in Bakersfield, so does the Central Valley have a different kind of feeling than different towns or different places do?

TY: Yeah, totally, the most romantic place on Earth for me, you know? The funny thing about that is that in Garth’s private life, he’s pretty private. So I was totally caught off guard. I mean we had talked about getting married. We figured we would get married at some point, but there wasn’t like ‘we’re about to get engaged.’ None of that was happening in my head.

I never thought he would do it in front of 7,000 people in Bakersfield, California. I saw footage of it when he proposed, I have my hands over my face and I’m kind of doing this [shaking head] and he thinks I’m saying no, I think, for a second, but I was just overwhelmed. I thought, ‘seriously? Is that’s what’s happening?’ so it definitely has a special place for me.

JW: Business student, singer, actress, you have your own cooking show, philanthropist: What’s next for Trisha Yearwood?

TY: I don’t know. Maybe, a vacation. We took one vacation in our 11 years of marriage. We went to Hawaii for a few days with our girls and we loved it and we talked about going back there, but I’m from Georgia so a vacation for me has to include a beach, but it could be just Florida somewhere, just the Gulf Coast of Florida. Then the other thing is that we’re gone so much that really when we’re home, I’m really a homebody. I say that, but the truth is that I’d really just kind of like to be on my couch with my feet up with my dog, drinking my coffee.