April Rosales grew up playing softball and even though her heart was with basketball, she’s now been coaching Emporia State softball for 18 years.

Rosales is from Meridian, Kansas and played baseball when she was six or seven and then took on softball. She continued playing until she graduated from Emporia State, later becoming the head coach.

After high school Rosales went to Johnson County Community College. Although her love was with basketball and she wanted to make it to the WNBA, being a first generation college student took priority. JCCC provided a books and tuition scholarship if she would play softball there.

“The oldest in my family, I felt I needed to go where the money was, per say, and Johnson County gave me a books and tuition scholarship, so I started there and obviously was offered an opportunity at Emporia as well,” Rosales said.

Her first semester at ESU was in the fall of ‘05. When she arrived the team had no coach, but by September they did. Kristi Bredbenner came in and stayed for six years before moving on to Wichita State.

 Rosales had to redshirt, an athlete sits out for a season and keeps a year of eligibility, her first season at ESU and would have three knee surgeries that fall. 

“April worked really hard, I mean she had to,” Bredbenner said. “She had really good hands and really bad legs, if you want to say, she had really bad knees.”

Bredbenner went on to say Rosales has a love of the game, with a “team first mentality” and that the team could always count on her for a really big hit. Off the field, Bredbrenner said Rosales was caring, compassionate and would give the shirt off her back to anyone.

In ‘06 the Hornets made it to the World Series and- although Rosales wasn’t on the field, she was happy to be on the team. She called her team “just really good athletes” and that it’s one of her favorite softball memories. 

The team would make it back to the World Series in Rosales senior year, ‘08. Rosales enjoyed getting to “relish” in their time. 

Now she gets to enjoy softball in a different light.

She always wanted to be a coach, but she never thought she would be a college coach. Let alone coaching some of her former teammates. She wanted to go back and teach at the high school she graduated from, but she got here and then three years went by, then five and now eighteen. 

“That was probably the hardest thing for me, transitioning, because I stayed at Emporia State,” Rosales said. “I ended up being the HPER graduate assistant right when I got done playing and I was coaching my teammates that first couple of years.”

Rosales had to adjust from being their best friend to being their coach. She’s grateful that Bredbenner was the head coach because Rosales was able to hang out with and do things with her. 

Bredbenner said Rosales was one of her assistants for three years and did a “really good job,” did everything she was asked of and was “a Hornet through and through.”

However, the relationships she has built over the years with her players is one of her favorite parts of coaching. Some of her favorite stories aren’t even about softball. To her, seeing the women enter the workforce, get married, or have children is more special to her than how many games that team won.

“I think just making sure that they understand how they are much more than a softball player is something that I want to instill in them,” Rosales said.

Rosales believes that hard work does pay off if you keep doing what you love. She was volunteering for seven to eight years before she was able to get paid for doing softball. She said that being a head coach might come with some “glitz or “glam” but it’s really a lot of people putting a collective effort in, including her two “amazing” assistants and her 17 players that “worked hard from day one.”

“I want people to know that we have a village of people that help us throughout the year whether they’re actually on the team or in the community, or administrative staff, or athletic trainers, all of those people on payroll. It’s not just my team, it’s the Emporia State softball team,” Rosales said.