Lacrosse coach Emily Deering just couldn’t walk away.

The season had ended. Her career was over. But she still wanted more.

Like many other Allegheny athletes, past and present, the former mid-fielder found a new way to be around the sport she loves.

“It was crazy of me to think I could just turn sports off,” Deering said. “It’s too big a part of me. I would lose my identity.”

So when head lacrosse coach Lynn Zlotkowski offered Deering the opportunity to come back and coach, she couldn’t pass it up.

“I didn’t plan on coaching,” Deering said. “And I definitely thought I had closed the chapter at Allegheny. But the position seemed like a comfortable transition into the real world. And why coach somewhere else when I had put all of my passion into this (Allegheny) program already. Coaching just seemed like the right choice for me.”

She isn’t alone. Many Gators take the coaching route after they’ve hung up their equipment. While unlike Deering, most will move onto other places, coaching lets the former players stay active with the sport.

Some people like Lacey Keefer, ’07, actually prefer coaching.

“I want to help other people make progress,” Keefer said.

Keefer was a cheerleader most of her life before taking some time off. Like Deering, she couldn’t stay away and joined the Allegheny squad this year. The experience she says, prompted her to begin coaching. She’ll coach 9- to 12-year-olds for All-Star cheerleading out of Jamestown, N.Y next year.

“After seeing how much the squad improved this season, it made want to help other people achieve that kind of success,” she said.

But coaching isn’t the only option. Other athletes are still looking to improve upon their own personal success. Gator soccer player, Dan Carik, ’07, hopes he can find some way to keep playing.

"At first I was upset when I thought my soccer career was over," Carik said. "But then I realized that I was never going to stop playing soccer. It's not something that I can just easily give up. It's a big part of what I like to do and who I am So I found an adult men's team to play on."