Women’s lacrosse head coach Amanda Moore looks on during a 17-10 win for the Buckeyes over Butler at Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium March 2.
It takes a certain type of person to bring a team together.
For Ohio State women’s lacrosse, it took Amanda Moore.
“With the old coaching staff, we had values and they were very overused,” said junior attacker Brynn Ammerman. “With the new coaching staff, we erased everything, like a clean slate. Everyone on our team has devoted themselves to being a part of the Buckeye sisterhood. Some of our values are resilience, excellence, loyalty, pride, and the Buckeye sisterhood means showing that in everything that we do, on and off the field.”
Moore, who took over as head coach in 2023, helps players feel undisturbed in the biggest moments, Ammerman said.
“She has a very calm presence to her and a very motherly presence to her, which I feel is very helpful, especially in times where things get tense and we need someone to calm us down,” Ammerman said.
Moore got her first coaching job at Ohio State, assistant coaching two seasons from 2009-10. After her short stint with the Buckeyes, Moore coached at Boston University for a year, Duke University for five years and then seven seasons at East Carolina University as head coach, where she helped develop the team ahead of its inaugural season in 2017.
Once the Eastern Carolina program was up and running, she decided to come back to the Buckeyes in 2023 when the opportunity arose.
“It’s an incredible opportunity, and Ohio State has such an incredible organization. Global recognition, the sports, the success and the tradition of these programs here are unmatched, in my opinion,” Moore said. “Competing in the Big Ten for a Big Ten championship, as well as a national championship, I think just really excites me. I think that it’s an opportunity to compete at the highest level when you’re representing Ohio State.”
As far as Moore’s coaching tendencies and practices, she said she attributes a lot of it to her time as a player at UNC.
“Something that I learned at UNC is just how to have a high standard for yourself, and also hold others around you to sort of that integrity gap,” Moore said. “They say the difference between what you say and what you do is your integrity gap, and I think just being able to recall those lessons learned in college for our student-athletes today has just been immensely impactful.”
Senior defender Erin O’Neil said she feels Moore’s UNC lacrosse background will be useful to Ohio State when the Buckeyes go up against more challenging Big Ten teams.
“I think Mandy having a background of playing at UNC brings a lot of experience to this program that helps us a lot in terms of bigger games,” O’Neil said. “I mean, UNC is a lacrosse powerhouse and always has been ever since I started playing. So, knowing that she has that experience, I think will definitely help us go into these bigger games.”
Moore’s focus on tight-knit relationships has made having an entirely new coaching staff for her senior season run smoothly, O’Neil said.
“Coming in with a new coach in your last season could feel a little bit weird, but I think my class, Mandy and the rest of the coaching staff have put a really big emphasis on making sure that our relationships are very strong and that we are comfortable with each other,” O’Neil said. “It’s almost as if they have been here the whole time.”
Moore and the players credit these relationship dynamics to something called the “Buckeye sisterhood,” which focuses on certain core values that the entire team vowed to represent.
“We want to be a Buckeye sisterhood,” Moore said. “For us, that means investing time into our relationships, our team chemistry and culture. It’s reestablishing a foundation, one that is loyal, respectful, hardworking, gritty and just relentless on the field.”
Beyond the sisterhood, O’Neil said Moore can build relationships with players and she admires Moore’s efforts to know her team on a personal level.
“I think that she really tries to make a personal relationship with everybody on the team,” O’Neil said. “She has made a genuine effort to get to know about me, my family and my younger brother who goes here, so I think those types of relationships build a certain level of confidence and comfort being a player in her program and that is something that is super special to have.”
Moore said she mentors her players off the field by acting as a role model and also helping them to achieve their goals.
“As a coach, you ultimately model behavior. So, I am very mindful and cognizant of the behavior that I am exuding and modeling for my young female student-athletes. You know, I, myself as a female and a working mom, I’m aware of that. I think that it’s to help them understand what their goals are. Like we said earlier, ‘If you say that this is your goal, then what are you doing to achieve it?’ and helping them sort of marry that gap.”
In her first year at the helm of Ohio State women’s lacrosse, Moore led the team to a 7-4 overall record, and most recently, the Buckeyes took down No. 19 Penn State 9-8 for their first Big Ten win — a feeling Moore said she couldn’t wait to achieve.
