Muldrow Bulldogs baseball coach Zane Rose is stepping down to take an assistant baseball and football coaching job with the Gore Pirates. Rose was approved for hiring at the Gore Public Schools Board of Education May meeting on May 14.
“My teaching job is a lot, and I’m just taking a little step back right now from head coaching,” Rose said. “I’m just going to help them (Gore football and baseball teams) any way I can, and help them win all the games they can. I’m very much looking forward for the new venture.”
This opportunity will afford Rose the chance to work with former Muldrow football coach and current Gore football coach Brandon Ellis.
“When he (Ellis) was at Muldrow is how I actually ended up at Muldrow,” Rose said. “I was linebackers and special teams coach, which is what I’ll be doing for him (at Gore) also.”
It will be the second time Rose will be coaching at Gore.
“I’ve been here before,” he said. “All these guys who remember me were little kids, fifthand sixth-graders. I get to coach them again in high school. I’m really excited about the opportunity.”
Rose said the Class of 2024, which produced two college signees — Reid Sutton with Seminole State College and Colton Pulliam with Northwestern Oklahoma State University — will be one of the fond memories he will have from his two-year coaching stint with the Bulldogs baseball team.
“That group of seniors I had this year were great kids,” Rose said. “They were 1-28 the season before I got there, and we ended up being 16-10 this year and made the regional finals. Those kids did everything I asked of them. They would break into the field to hit. They were a bunch of baseball junkies.”
However, there’s also a fond memory from his Muldrow assistant football coaching days.
“I got to coach Trenden Collins (now a freshman at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kan.) and that bunch,” Rose said. “That was some great football, too.”
In his opinion, Rose believes he has left the Muldrow baseball program in a better shape than it was when he became coach of the ’Dogs. However, he also said that’s not necessarily what others might think.
“I feel like I have but that’s not for me to judge,” he said. “I feel like they’re in better shape than when I got there. Again, that’s not for me to judge. That’s for the folks in town to judge.”
At last week’s signing ceremonies in which Pulliam was a part of in signing with NWOSU, Muldrow High School Athletic Director Jana Armer said that finding Rose’s replacement is well underway.
“It’s going good,” Armer said. “We’ve interviewed a couple, and we have more lined up to interview. So, we’ve had a really good response.”
Armer also is hoping to fill that void very soon.
“We want to make the hire as quickly as we possibly can,” she said. We want to get that settled so they can start working on summer stuff.”
