Stine Emrick, BS Kinesiology and Health Promotion – Louisiana Tech (2020)
Master of Educational Leadership- Community College/Higher Education- Northern Arizona University
My name is Stine Emrick, I am currently the Associate Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Northern Arizona University. I began my journey in strength and conditioning while I was still in college, competing as a student athlete on La Tech’s women’s soccer team. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in strength and conditioning while I was still in high school and training with a strength and conditioning coach, recognizing that I could develop my physical qualities that made me successful at playing soccer. Due to that, I chose to pursue a degree in Kinesiology while at Louisiana Tech. Through my education and career as a collegiate athlete, I was able to be exposed to collegiate strength and conditioning and recognized it as something that I wanted to pursue specifically.
My first internship was during the summer of 2018 at Next Level Sports Performance in Golden, CO. Although the private sector was not ultimately where I wanted to end up in a full time position, it gave me the foundation for interactions with athletes. I then completed other internships, the first being at Colorado State University during the summer of 2019 under the leadership of Joey Guarascio (currently the head strength and conditioning coach at Florida Atlantic University), Carl Miller (athletic performance coach at Indiana), Zach Higginbotham (Director of Sports Science at Michigan), Shelton Gaffney (director of football strength and conditioning coach at Bethune-Cookman), and Elijah Blackman (assistant strength and conditioning coach for football at Kansas State). Following my summer at CSU I joined Coach Kurt Hester (current director of football sports performance) as an intern for the entire 2019-2020 year at La Tech. Here I continued to be poured into by Coach Hester and the rest of his staff (Aaron Schultz (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Kansas State), Cody Bascom, Troy Johnson (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Florida International University), and Brian Walker (assistant head of strength and conditioning at IMG Academy)). During my time as an intern at Tech, I studied and earned my Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). My experiences in my internships lead me to pursue a graduate assistantship to be able to earn my master’s degree as well as get full time experience coaching various teams.
I applied and was hired as a GA at Northern Arizona University in the spring of 2020 and began coaching during the summer of 2020. I spent 9 months as a GA before being hired full time and eventually being promoted to Associate Head Strength and Conditioning Coach. While here I have been personally responsible for women’s golf, women’s dive, women’s soccer, and women’s basketball. In addition to these teams, I have had the opportunity to work with men’s basketball, women’s swim, sprints and jumps, and throws. I have heavily assisted with the football team and all aspects of their training. While at NAU, I have had the privilege of working with several fantastic strength and conditioning coaches who have shaped, grown, and challenged me. Those coaches include Michael Gragg (head strength and conditioning coach at Harding University), Jake Buehler (strength and conditioning coach at Grand Haven High School), Victoria Saucedo (director of sports performance for women’s basketball at Virginia Commonwealth University), Sam Lackey (director of strength and conditioning coach at Lamar High School), Jaylon “Beef” Watson (director of sports performance at Jackson State University), Tyler Shumate (assistant director of athletic performance), Lauren Sale (assistant sports performance coach), Taylor Bissel (director of sports performance at Southeastern Oklahoma State University), and others.
My role consists of the full development of the women’s soccer and women’s basketball teams here at NAU. That includes all resistance training that they participate in, any energy system development, and speed development. With both of these teams, data is collected and analyzed for various metrics including but not limited to peak power, jump height, hydration levels, yardage/load during practice and more. My involvement with these teams includes travel and attendance of practices and games where I also play roles. Not only am I heavily involved with my own teams, but I also play a role in implementation of resistance training, energy system development, speed development, and travel with the football team. Beyond the coaching that I do, I am responsible for all intern education and curriculum development. We have had over a dozen interns earn GA positions or otherwise after their internship at NAU. Those interns include Shawn Field (former assistant strength and conditioning coach at UNLV), Johnny Goldstein (head strength and conditioning coach at Ventura College), Jordan Elias (head strength and conditioning coach at Desert Edge High School), Sean Riden (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Frostburg State University), Will Fazende (assistant sports performance coach at the University of Evansville, also a graduate of Louisiana Tech), Logan Bayus (head strength coach at O’Connor High School), Nick Brown (graduate assistant at Mercer University), Johnny Atnip (graduate assistant at Fairfield University), Lex Mohler (graduate assistant at Central Missouri University), Tommie Dorsey (graduate assistant at St. John’s University), and Marlise Karson (sports performance coach at Mankind Physical Therapy).
While I have been a strength and conditioning coach I have obtained my CSCS, and my Functional Movement Systems (FMS) Level 1 certification. Although I have not yet pursued certifications in these areas, I have been exposed to Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) and Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR) and have been educated in those areas by individuals who hold certifications in those systems. Beyond education on these systems, I have had the opportunity to continue my education by attending national conferences as well as continuing education on my own through various organizations.
The Exponential Factor 