By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
SCRANTON – Elk Lake boys basketball coach Rich Emmons resigned Monday following seven years in which the Warriors won three Lackawanna League Division 4 championships.
Emmons, who had informed the school immediately after the season of his intentions, formalized the decision with a letter of resignation Monday. He served as an assistant coach to Forest City’s John Duffy, leading the Division 3 and 4 players in Monday night’s Lackawanna League Senior All-Star Game.
A teacher at Susquehanna, Emmons said he hopes to return to coaching at some point and would consider coaching a girls team or serving as an assistant. For the foreseeable future, however, his concentration will be on following his children in the sport.
Hudson Stengel, Emmons’ son, played on Susquehanna’s eighth-grade team this season and he has two younger children who could be involved in the sport in the future.
“I had to make a decision,” said Emmons, who served as an assistant at Susquehanna prior to taking the Elk Lake job. “I kind of made the decision that if I’m going to stop, I wanted to stop for all of the years, not just some of them later.”
Emmons took over what had been a championship team in two of the previous three seasons under John Warnero, the school’s current principal. Emmons kept the Warriors strong, winning another championship in 2016-17, his first season, then back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022.
The 2020-21 Elk Lake team lost the District 2 Class 2A championship game at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in overtime to eventual state semifinalist Old Forge.
During Emmons’ tenure, Elk Lake was 56-27 in Lackawanna Division 4, beating out Susquehanna (50-32), the only other team with more than one title, for the best record during that time.
The Warriors were 7-5 in the division and 11-13 overall this season, which ended with a District 2 Class 2A semifinal loss to Blue Ridge.
