Emma Ward Followed Her Own Route to Lacrosse

When Emma Ward’s friend passed along a flier for lacrosse, her father, Maurice, pulled up a game.

“I'm not playing,” Emma recalled saying. “They can't hit each other.”

So much for first impressions being everything. Ward has gone on to become an All-American attacker at Syracuse, announcing in the summer that she planned to return for a fifth season on The Hill.

But you’ll have to forgive her younger self. After getting her start in youth sports by playing soccer — as many future lacrosse stars do — she decided to follow in her older brother and father’s footsteps and try the American style of football. The recent movement to delay tackle football until players are older to reduce head injuries hadn’t happened yet.

“I was the only girl on a full boys’ team from second grade until I was in seventh grade — full pads, running around, hitting each other, the whole nine yards,” Ward said. “I played running back and quarterback on offense, and then I played linebacker and outside line and the end for defense. I was all over the place.”

Ward is the first to admit football was her first love, and it spilled out onto the field in fearless fashion. Her parents followed suit, encouraging her to play as long as she wanted.

“She loved the tackles to run the ball, and she did a pretty good job at it,” Maurice Ward said. “We didn't know how long it was going to last. We thought it was just going to be maybe just a one-time thing, but she continued to play for another three or four years after that. I think that's where she gets her physicality and her aggressiveness.”

The girl factor was easy to overlook when she suited up for youth football in Babylon, N.Y. (at least until the handshake line).

“I'd come off the field and take my helmet off, and coaches and other players who weren’t on my team hadn’t known I was a girl,” Ward said. “It was pretty cool — a girl kicking all their butts. It was a pat on the back for me.”

Ward did, eventually, sign up for girls’ lacrosse. It kept her busy during the spring season when football games were backyard affairs. Her club team was Top Guns, helmed by the former Northwestern star and current Hofstra coach Shannon Smith. Steve and Nicole Levy (also of Syracuse fame) coached her.

And eventually, genetics and can’t-be-taught height caught up. The boys were getting bigger, and specializing in football at a higher and potentially Division I level didn’t seem realistic. She pivoted to lacrosse. But Ward couldn’t hide a difference between her and some other players and families: Born to a white mother and Black father, Ward was often the only woman of color on the field.

“It was never really a factor, but it was definitely something I noticed,” she said. “My dad is Black, and my mom is white. We’d go to these tournaments, and there would maybe — maybe — be two other interracial families on the whole entire field in Maryland. It was kind of a crazy business.”

Her father also noticed, but as with playing football, he left the ball in his daughter’s stick.

“It never seemed to bother us,” he said. “We figured that if Emma got to a point that she didn’t want to play, she’d tell us. We didn’t have a problem with it, but we talked about it as a family, including my son. It was, ‘Hey, this is the way the sport is right now. You can be a trailblazer and set examples for young girls.’ When parents get involved and see it, maybe they’ll say, ‘Emma Ward can do it, so why can’t you?’”

In the meantime, Ward looked up to Nicole Levy, who she said is “like a big sister.”

“Everything that Nicole was, I wanted to be,” Ward said.

That included the desire to play for Syracuse. But there would be hurdles on the way to the “315” — and not of the typical New York Snow Belt variety. Ward had two ACL injuries before officially entering high school during a time when players were recruited and committed in junior high. Bolstered by solid recommendations from the Levy family, Gary Gait came calling anyway.

“There weren’t a lot of fans who were willing to pull the trigger on me without seeing me play, which wasn’t going to be feasible,” Ward said. “But I loved Coach Gait and his coaching style. He was rocking with me from day one. I think it worked out in his favor.”

When Ward arrived at Syracuse, she’d have to rock a different number. She wore No. 24 throughout her high school career, but a different Emma, Emma Tyrrell, already had dibs on that one. Maurice Ward had a no-brainer choice for a secondary option: No. 44, which she wore when playing high school hoops in honor of her father, who also used the number.

For the mathematically inclined, 44 is double the legendary number of Syracuse men’s lacrosse worn by Gary Gait, Mikey Powell, Ryan Powell and currently Joey Spallina. But that — and her father’s personal connection to the number — wasn’t behind the suggestion. Syracuse historians know that No. 44 also had an ever deeper meaning.

“My dad took me through a history lesson, talking about Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little and explained the impact they had on Syracuse,” Ward said. “He talked about Ernie Davis winning the Heisman and Jim Brown playing lacrosse and football. I hadn’t realized the connection, but it became an easy decision.”

The Emma Express motored into the Salt City in the fall of 2020, but her rise up the Syracuse depth chart was unexpectedly expedited. Many players around the country, including attacker Emily Hawryschuk, chose to take advantage of the NCAA’s extra year of eligibility following the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Then, the injury bug rolled through the Orange lineup, including Hawryschuk, who suffered an ACL injury during early season practice. Attacker Meg Carney went down with the same injury in April.

“We didn't have high expectations for her freshman year,” Maurice Ward said. “But then, things happened. Hawryschuk got hurt. Gary put her in there, and she just took off.”

Ward made 12 starts during her rookie campaign, finishing second on the team in points (73) and assists (30), helping the Orange to the NCAA championship game despite all the injuries. A skilled finisher, she scored one fewer goal than her jersey number (43). It wasn’t just the numbers, but how she was racking them up — the flip passes no one saw coming, the physicality on drives towards the net, the strength she showed ripping one from outside the arc, the emphatic celebrations.

If there was pressure, Ward didn’t show it. It was like backyard lacrosse (with a bit of football finesse).

“I just went out and played,” she said. “It was surreal to see how happy and driven you can be and have so much success.”

It was surreal and challenging to scout against her, too. Her future coach, Kayla Treanor, then an associate head coach at Boston College, had to do it four times in 2021.

“You couldn't eliminate Emma from the game,” Treanor said. “She played on the right side, and she was a huge threat. She's a great outside shooter and finishes inside. She’s tough to guard in a one-to-one matchup.”

Boston College and Syracuse split the season series 2-2, with the Eagles taking the most coveted meeting in the NCAA title game. Heartbreak struck again in the preseason when Ward sustained a Grade 3 turf toe and complete plantar plate rupture in her right foot. The irony of it? The injury is common in her first-love sport.

“The injury is prone to the football players, especially offensive linemen or linebackers, because when you explode off your foot, you're putting a lot of pressure on the balls or your feet,” Maurice Ward said. “That’s where it would happen. This is not a lacrosse injury.”

And yet, for his daughter, it was — and it was devastating at first. Her mother joined her at Syracuse for some time just to be there for her. She also didn’t have to look far for support from teammates. Carney and Hawryschuk knew what it felt like to hear their seasons were over. Sierra Cockerille was also in a brace. Emma Tyrrell later tore her ACL that April.

Ward also got curious and tried to make the best of it. She picked up marbles with her toes. She noted the intricacies of recovering from this injury versus the ACL tears. She got mentally stronger.

“It was interesting because I'm somebody who's used to an ACL rehab, coming back from a meniscus,” she said. “I always tell people that turf toe was much harder than like any other recovery that I ever had to go through.”

But Ward went through it and returned, helping Syracuse reach two more final fours, both semifinal losses to Boston College. For Ward, the friendships she made — with the Tyrrells, Carney and others — outweigh the success. There was plenty of that, and she loved that, too.

However, Emma Tyrrell graduated last year, and the Meg Show moved on to podcasting after the 2023 season. Ward also contemplated hanging them up after Syracuse’s loss to Boston College in May.

“It was a bit of a hard decision, to be honest,” she said. “I’ve been through so much, and my body isn’t always at its best. I needed to see where my headspace was and if my body could handle it. I wasn’t going to come back and not be able to perform. Why would I come back, then?”

Ward spent time in her own head and body, finally deciding in August. She still had something left to give.

“The big driving point was my conversations with my coaches,” she said. “They were like, ‘You’re never going to have this time back, and you don’t want to look back and regret that you didn’t do it.’ That was a huge piece that sat with me.’”

Ward is also standing up. She will undoubtedly be a vocal leader on a young team, just as she was constantly raising her voice as a rookie. Now she’s looking for ways to do it beyond the lines, hoping to make up for last time.

“When I go back, I wish I would have been more vocal about [race] when I was younger,” Ward said. “I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it in seventh and fourth grade, going to these tournaments.”

To be fair, these tournaments were before George Floyd’s murder forced a reckoning on race in 2020. Also? Emma was 9 and 12 at those tournaments. And while society likes to encourage kids to “change the world,” it’s an unfair burden to put on anyone, let alone a person who isn’t a legal adult.

Ward has become more comfortable getting uncomfortable and recently took the IWLCA Multiracial Futures of the Game Academy online to find more support in having these conversations. The virtual academy helps women’s lacrosse student-athletes of color work on personal development and leadership skills through formal and small-group discussions.

“It brings people of color together within the sport of lacrosse — D-II, D-III, club — to have these tough conversations about race and giving the community a backbone to talk about it,” she said. “It can be uncomfortable talking about race when you are one of three people of color on your team. Having this community is nice, and it let me step out of my shoes. It was something I’d never done before. I learned a lot about myself.”

Ward hopes to use her platform to raise and spread awareness, becoming the fearless playmaker off the field just as she is on the field.

“I want to be someone who is not scared to say, ‘Hey, there’s a problem, how do we fix it?’” Ward said. “Maybe that’s being vocal on social media or in my own space and thinking about how I can personally fix something. It’s not going to change overnight, but I know I have a platform and the support to make a splash, have a voice. There are other people who wish they could be in my shoes. I can be a role model for those who may be dealing with the same things I dealt with when I was younger.”

The truth is, Ward is also growing older, and the real world will call after the final whistle of her career — hopefully with Syracuse’s first national championship trophy in hand. She has no intentions of slowing down, hoping to turn another passion of hers (crime series like “NCIS” and “Criminal Minds”) into a reality.

“I'm somebody who is very meticulous, very detail-oriented, and I like solving problems,” said Ward, who added she knows full well that the job is different than the TV shows she devours when she has a rare spare moment. “For example, looking at a crime scene and asking, ‘Why did this happen?’ I also want a job that’s ever-changing. I don’t want to sit behind the desk too much [long-term]. I like a high-paced environment, like the one I’ve had as a student-athlete.”

Ward also wouldn’t rule out giving professional lacrosse a go, and she’d love to stay involved as a coach. For his part, Maurice Ward mostly wants a healthy and happy daughter, like any good father.

But he has one last audible in mind.

“I did say to her that, regardless of where she is, once 2028 comes around, I’d like her to try to make the Olympic team,” he said. “She’s like, “That’s definitely something I want to do.’”

Perhaps the Emma Express has one more stop.