Field Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Saquon Barkley
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Me and my field hockey team beating Central Bucks East my senior year after losing to them previously that season- everyone played as a team, and you could see and feel the passion all around!
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: There’s nothing more embarrassing than making a stupid mistake in practice and getting corrected in front of the whole team. I definitely have my fair share of those moments!
Music on playlist: Lots of hype music for pre-games and the gym as well as chill music to help me decompress after a long day!
Future plans: To study nursing at a 4-year university!
Favorite motto: “Blessed to be a blessing!”
One goal before turning 30: Study abroad/ travel the world to have stories to share with my kids
One thing people don’t know about me: I’ve swam with dolphins!
By Mary Jane Souder
Emma Lankin has a passion for field hockey.
The North Penn senior would be the first to admit she isn’t the most talented. As a matter of fact, she was in and out of the lineup as a reserve midfielder. And Lankin will not be going on to play at the next level. Field hockey is just one of many activities the senior is involved in and really could be nothing more than an asterisk to her busy life.
But when her field hockey career came to an end with North Penn’s loss to state powerhouse Villa Maria Academy in the District 1 3A Tournament, the postgame scene suggests hockey was a whole lot more than that.
“We lost by 14-0 or something (actually 10-0), and we were all in a circle crying,” Lankin said.
The tears had nothing to do with the lopsided loss.
“It was really sad - it was me and most of the other seniors last time playing a field hockey game because we won’t be playing in college,” Lankin said. “I remember all the seniors had their moment to speak, and I
was literally blabbering between crying and trying to form a sentence. I was like – ‘I’m so grateful that I didn’t decide to quit playing field hockey. This is just the best experience of my life, and thank you coaches for supporting me throughout.’”
Making those words especially powerful is the fact that Lankin twice reached a crossroads and seriously considered walking away from field hockey. In truth, no one would have blamed her if she had.
A newcomer to the sport in eighth grade, Lankin was cut when she went out for the high school team a year later. Most players who are cut, according to coach Shannon McCracken, never come back.
“We don’t keep all the freshmen – we just can’t because we don’t have a freshman team,” the Knights’ coach said. “Every couple years, you have a kid you keep their sophomore year that was cut as a freshman.”
Lankin is in that rare group that came back a better player and made the team.
“After I got cut from the high school team, I was like hmmmmm – maybe I should work on my skills,” she said.
Lankin joined the club circuit with the Souderton Strikers.
“She did club and she got better,” McCracken said. “It just speaks about who she is. She’s determined, and she also understands that her skills weren’t where they needed to be, and she still wanted to be part of the team in the future, so she worked hard to get her skills to the level they needed to be.
“A lot of kids will shy away from a ‘no’ or view it as a failure, but she viewed it as growth. It’s a moment – ‘I can get better, I can grow, I can use this to mature as an individual rather than it’s a no, and I’m not going to do it.’”
A second crossroads
As a sophomore, Lankin was the junior varsity and once again found herself facing a decision the summer after her sophomore year.
“I was really overwhelmed with the thought of taking harder classes junior year, having to try and prepare for the college application process,” she said. “I was on JV, and I just didn’t know if I felt like a good contribution to the team or if they even needed me.
“It was honestly stressing me out at the time more than it was bringing me joy, but I just didn’t want to quit, and I didn’t know what to do because I was on the brink. I needed guidance, so I went to coach McCracken.”
A conversation with her coach changed everything.
“Ultimately, I want to support kids not doing too much and making sure they have a good balance in life, but I said, ‘You’re never going to get these years back,’” McCracken said.
Lankin took McCracken’s message to heart.
“She was really helpful and supportive in helping me make that decision and said – ‘We will support whatever you think is best for you. If you just want to go to the summer workouts and practices and see how you feel – we obviously don’t want to lose you, but if you think that decision to stop playing is best for you – we’ll support you,’” Lankin recalled. “She said, ‘Even if you do play and you think you’re overwhelmed and you need more time for schoolwork and your need more time to balance your other activities -just communicate that to me and the other coaches, and we’ll be flexible and try to be as supportive as possible.’
“That was really, really comforting to hear and made me realize – ‘Yes, I think I can still do this, and I think it’s worth it because I don’t want to lose this extra part of my life.’ I didn’t know if I wanted to continue, but that was the moment I was like – I think I can.”
Two years later, Lankin has no regrets.
“Especially because I’m not going to play in college, I think I would have been so upset if I missed out on the rest of my opportunity to experience this team atmosphere and learning all these life skills,” she said. “On top of learning field hockey – I learned so many life skills from coach McCracken and being on a team and everything.”
Those life lessons included punctuality and time management.
“She instilled the importance of being on time for things and showing up even early because being early is on time because that’s how you show people that you care and that something is important to you,” Lankin said. “Also, one of her mottos was – control the controllables.
“Only focus on the things that are in your control, and that can translate to everyday life I think her instilling that value in me and my teammates will stick with me the rest of my life.”
A full plate
For most of her life, Lankin has been involved in dance. It started when she was three years old and never stopped. Field hockey entered the picture in eighth grade.
“The team aspect going into high school was really appealing, so I thought it would be really cool to be a part of a sports team,” she said. My friends were also playing in middle school, so I was like – why don’t I just try it? And I ended up loving it.
“I was still simultaneously dancing while playing field hockey and lacrosse. I wasn’t a competitive dancer, so it didn’t really consume my entire life, which I’m pretty grateful for. It’s a performance company, and I still do really fun trips. We performed in Disney Word and the 76ers games and Flyers games as well as nursing homes and stuff.
“It was still important for me to do dance because I had a whole family and friend group there. It was still part of my life, but I just wanted to branch out and try something new at the same time.”
Dance and sports plus a heavy course load might be more than enough for most, but Lankin has yet another interest that led her down an unusual path.
“I went to North Montco Technical Career Center my ninth and 10th grade years for health sciences because I was always interested in health care, but I decided it wasn’t for me, and I wanted to take more academic classes at North Penn to guide me on the track to become a nurse,” she said.
It was around this time that Lankin found out about a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) program through Living Branches at the Dock Woods location in Lansdale.
“I found it online where it was a class in the summer where I would get paid to go to class and learn how to become a CNA,” she said. “Once I got my certification, they would hire me at that same location., so I signed up for it with one of my best friends, Grace Tarlo, who happened to be the field hockey
manager this year.”
Last summer, both were enrolled in the program.
“It was four days a week, it was pretty much like school,” she said. “We would go to the nursing home, there was a classroom set up in the basement, and we would learn about everything,” Lankin said. “So we took the course and did clinicals at the end.
“That’s when I was getting concerned since it was going to interfere with the start of field hockey preseason my senior year. That’s when I was like – oh no, I don’t know what to do. Let me talk to coach because she’ll know the right answer because it was really important to me because it’s part of my future career.
“I think it would set me up for success to get experience in the field and to not only get just book knowledge but also the people knowledge and bedside manner and things like that, so it was real important for me to have this experience but also field hockey was obviously important to me too because a year before I was worried about even playing in the first place.”
A conversation with McCracken once again put Lankin’s mind at rest.
“She was so understanding - I can’t express how grateful I am for how flexible she was,” Lankin said. “It was tryouts where I’d be missing a few days. It was last two clinicals and my graduation, and I couldn’t miss any of those classes.
“That’s why it was obviously stressful to me because both of them were huge commitments, and I wanted to balance both. It was just really huge that I could be able to do both, and that’s all because of coach McCracken.”
Lankin is now a certified CNA and is part of the pool shift at Living Branches where she does two shifts a month.
“It’s giving me great experience, and I’m really just so grateful that I was able to take the course because I really have learned so much about myself,” she said. “It’s definitely solidified my interest in healthcare and helping others because I always knew I had an interest, but this course really helped me decide. If I hated it – great, I know it’s not for me and I can pursue something else. I’m just so grateful I fell in love with it because it’s just encouraging me even more to want to go to nursing school next year.”
Looking ahead
Lankin has not finalized her college choice and is waiting to hear from her top choice, but she has been accepted into the nursing programs at UNC-Wilmington and West Virginia.
And if she needed more to do in her spare time, Lankin – who works weekends at Well Fed in Skippack - is involved in numerous extra-curricular activities at North Penn. She is a member of National Honor Society, she is part of Key Club and this year was part of Link Crew. She also is involved in Special Olympics and plans to participate in the organization’s upcoming fundraiser – the Polar Plunge. She is co-president of the Italian Club and was part of the school’s ski and snowboard club until this year.
Although Lankin’s field hockey days are behind her, she will not be forgotten by her coach.
“We had some injuries this year, so she was at times in a starting role, and then if the player was healthy and able to come back, then she was back in the sub role,” McCracken said. “She was the type of kid – what can I do to help the team? And you just love those kids because you can count of them. She was always ready to go on the sidelines. She was cheering on her teammates and invested in the game – just a very selfless kid.
“You can have all the talent in the world, but she’s a kid I’m going to really remember and I’m going to be proud of because that’s what it’s all about. It’s high school, and, yes, you want to win, but the fact that you can bring a kid along that maybe doesn’t have the talent of some but has the character and they can contribute and they can walk away a better person – that’s a win.”
