Dave Rose Stops By BYU Practice One Week After Suffering Heart Attack
Oct 30, 2019, 12:06 AM | Updated: 12:02 pm
Brigham Young Cougars head coach Dave Rose waves to a group of fans as BYU Cougars fall to the San Diego Toreros in WCC tournament action at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, March 10, 2019. San Diego won 80-57. (Scott Winterton, Deseret News)
(Scott Winterton, Deseret News)
PROVO, Utah – The BYU basketball program is putting on the final touches in practice before they open the Mark Pope era next Tuesday against Cal State Fullerton.
The man Pope took over for at BYU is legendary head coach Dave Rose.
Rose, who suffered a heart attack just days after concluding a three-week vacation to Europe stopped by the Marriott Center on Tuesday with his wife Cheryl to check out Pope’s squad in person at the Cougars practice.
Pope, who coached on Rose’s staff for five seasons, was excited to see his mentor at practice.
Coach Dave Rose and his wife Cheryl were at #BYU basketball practice. Mark Pope discussed what it meant to have Coach Rose in attendance. @kslsports pic.twitter.com/cHHurtgPwK
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) October 29, 2019
“It’s really awesome. We were in contact with coach as soon as everything happened kind of through Cheryl and Garret (Rose’s son) and the guys were really eager to see him and reach out to him,” said Pope. “So they sent him a bunch of videos that were more or less entertaining and then were kind of patiently waiting for him to feel better. Then coach was like, yeah I wanna come. So it was such a lift for the guys and they were so excited to see him.”
In 14 seasons as head coach, Rose posted a career coaching record of 301-135. BYU’s practice on Tuesday was held at the Marriott Center, a venue where Rose posted a dominating 170-27 mark as the leader of the Cougar hoops program.
Former @BYUbasketball Head Coach Dave Rose suffered a major heart attack on Tuesday morning. Some extraordinary doctors & prayer helped him get through it. An update below was posted by his wife Cheryl.
Wishing Coach Rose a full recovery. Love to the Rose fam! 💙🙏🏼#BYU #BYUSN pic.twitter.com/DBXmTd6CZu
— Spencer Linton (@Spencer_Linton) October 24, 2019
“I know it’s got to be healing for him to walk in this building, just in the sense of he is legitimately the world’s expert on the energy in this building, and what he’s personally lived through in this building. So I was really happy this is how it worked out so he could come here,” Pope said.
BYU opens up the 2019-20 season next Tuesday against Cal State Fullerton at 7 p.m.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
