Emma Rose completed her second season at the helm of the Salem lacrosse program in 2020.
The biggest highlight of the season for Rose and the Spirits came on Saturday, Feb. 22, when Salem claimed a 16-15 overtime victory over visiting Randolph College. First-year Danielle Allen converted a free position shot with 1:32 remaining in the overtime session to mark the second win in the program history at Varsity Field.
Rose came to Salem after a successful playing career at Gardner-Webb, where she was a member of the program's inaugural lacrosse team. A three-year letterwinner, she played in 52 games making 50 starts along the way. Rose completed her Runnin' Bulldog career with 75 ground balls, 46 draw controls and 39 points as a midfielder.
Rose also made an impact in the classroom, earning Big South Presidential Academic Honors on three occasions. A team captain, Rose was named to the Big South All-Academic team in her senior year.
After graduating from Gardner-Webb with her bachelor's degree in political science, Rose later earned her master of arts in sustainability from Wake Forest in 2019. In addition to her coaching duties, Rose also serves as an adjunct environmental science professor at Salem College.
In a recent conversation Rose took time to discuss her passion for lacrosse, coaching and her life and provided the following responses:
Describe the coaching path that has brought you to Salem.
Rose: So I come from a pretty heavy coaching family. Growing up in South Florida football is the main sport, and my dad coached football for most of my life, before starting to coach lacrosse when I was in fifth grade because there were simply no coaches, and he knew the game because my brothers played. So I had been exposed to some pretty hard knocks style football coaches growing up, with coaches like Nick Saban or Jon Dansowski being my coaching heroes. I also had the chance to be coached by great coaches through my youth, and have exposure at camps to lacrosse hall of famers. I think this really shaped the coach I wanted to be and the desire to coach. I was extremely active in high school working with middle schoolers, and then through college with local diversity and inclusion teams, and travel teams. While doing my master's degree at Wake Forest, I got involved working with Salem lacrosse in our first year, while coaching a local travel team and have been here ever since.
When you think back to learning lacrosse at a young age to where you are now (coaching it at a college level), what fundamentals do you focus on every day in practice and during the offseason to better the players?
Rose: At a young age, being comfortable with my stick and practicing the fundamentals, catching, throwing and groundballs were heavily emphasized. Those basic skills can always be better, and we focus on these fundamentals every day in practice, and every time we wallball. Lacrosse is a simple game, you catch, you throw, you scope groundballs and you score. As a coach and as a former player I find lacrosse is significantly more fun, and you find yourself improving at faster rates when you drill the basics of the game into your muscle memory, and that is what we try to do without team in practice and in the off season as the fundamentals of the game never change.
Who are the individuals that have had the biggest impact on you as a coach and why?
Rose: My parents played a huge part in my development as a coach. My mother didn't pick up a stick or the game of lacrosse till she was 45, and proved to me that in order to be a good coach you didn't have to be an All-America caliber or outstanding lacrosse player, you just had to have the dedication to learning the game and understanding the concepts. My parents instilled in me that as a coach you are developing young ladies first, and players second. They taught me how to correlate skills you learn in lacrosse to skills you need for life, and happiness.
I also watched a lot of the coaching greats in the men's game like Jon Dansowski, Dom Starsia, and Gary Gait or Cathy Reese from the women's game whose mannerisms on the sidelines in terms of handling wins and losses, and their players helped me shape my own.
At what point of your life did you know that you wanted to be a lacrosse coach and what led you to making this decision?
Rose: I'm not sure there was a point in my life where I just decided I wanted to be a lacrosse coach. I think after my mother lost her battle with cancer, coaching was something that fell into my lap that really helped stabilize me, and focus my energy. It allowed me the space I needed personally to heal, and help my players heal through difficult times in their lives as well.
When you look at the abrupt ending to the 2020 lacrosse season what are things that you will always take away from the abbreviated season?
Rose: A couple things that are big takeaways from our season is that when the team puts their heart, and effort into the game we have huge successes such as that overtime win against Randolph. Statistically we never should have won that game, but at the end of the day the team wanted it, and they flat out scored more goals. The idea of small successes was also something that the team started to heavily emphasize before the end of our season, and I firmly believe that'll carry into next year and allow us to continue to build towards big successes.
You form a tremendous bond with your players both on and off the field. How has this lead to the success of the Salem lacrosse program?
Rose: Our bond with our players as a coaching staff really helps to secure that support system for our players at school. A lot of our young ladies we meet with weekly, or are in our office at least once a week wrecking some sort of havoc! These small meetings give us insight on how our team is doing mentally and physically, which allows us to tailor practice and know when we can push our girls. Without the connection we forge with our athletes, we would not know how to coach them properly, because each young lady is a little different, and being able to properly coach our student athletes allows us to be successful.
During the offseason do you watch a lot of film to help the players improve their offensive skillset and defensive positioning?
Rose: We do watch film as all of our players have access to HUDL which gives them the ability to view all film, but most importantly we encourage footwork and wall ball. In the off season a lot of our players find themselves having to work out alone or with someone who has never played lacrosse so we mostly provided footwork drills gear towards defensive positioning, and offensive footwork that sets up for good dodges and a heads up style of play.