ROSE
T
By Joe Sills
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT PACE
he weathered concrete ramp is
visible for a few seconds every
time Mark Rose drives over the
bridge. It’s there just minutes from his
garage, under the flicker of passing
suspension cables, where the broad
Mississippi River cuts a line dividing
Tennessee and Arkansas. Between the
two states, on an island near the
Volunteer State side, sits the place
where Rose’s star began to shine.
“I see that harbor and I start to
think, ‘Man, this is where it all began,’”
says Rose, his voice crackling over the
cellphone. He’s traveling again. “I think
about it every time.”
In 1999, Rose earned his first FLW
Tour trophy at that spot on the
Mississippi River near Memphis when
he finished third in an event. It was his
first foray into the Tour record books.
Days after making FLW Tour history
as the first person to win back-to-back
FLW Tour events when he barely edged
out Bryan Thrift at Lake Guntersville
and then at Lake Travis to start the
2017 season, Rose finds himself again
passing the same harbor. And once
more, he’s in a reflective mood.
“How it went down … it blows my
mind still,” he confesses. “I don’t mean
this in a boastf