Casey: First day off OSU baseball job ‘feels hollow’

Published 12:00 am Friday, September 7, 2018

The time was 9 a.m. Friday. Pat Casey already had attended Catholic mass, worked out and eaten a little breakfast. What was he going to do with the remainder of the first day of the rest of his life?

“I don’t know,” the former Oregon State baseball coach said. “I’m going to answer my emails and my text messages. After that? We’ll see.”

Casey isn’t sure how things will be in the wake of his Thursday announcement that he was retiring after 24 years on the job at OSU, and 31 years as a college head coach. He does know that it’s going to be different.

“It feels hollow, and it should,” Casey said. “I just have to give myself a chance to find out. I’m not fearful of it, but I’m certainly aware of it.”

The Newberg native played at the University of Portland, then spent eight years in the minor leagues, the final three at the Triple-A level. From there, he embarked on a coaching career that began with seven years at George Fox. He hasn’t come up for air since.

“I have put the uniform on for 40 years,” Casey said. “I’ve never lived a day in my life since I went into pro baseball in 1980 without baseball being what I do.

“Everybody wants to ask, ‘What am I going to do?’ I don’t have any hobbies. I hit the ball to the right every time I play golf, so I’m giving that up. I go to mass. I go to work. That’s it.”

Casey, 59, is like the drum major after International Baton goes out of business.

“I know everybody does things different,” he says. “There are people who say, ‘I’m going to work for 30 years, retire, buy a motor home and drive to Yellowstone.’ I never had that plan.

“The beauty of that is, I never set out to coach for 30 years. I never set out to retire yesterday. But my instincts told me I was running on fumes, and I wasn’t going to coach that way. That’s not fair to the players.”

Casey wasn’t sure what to do after his Thursday press conference. Did he get any sleep that night?

“Not that I remember,” he says. “I was up all night. My wife was sleeping like a baby.

“I meant what I said (at the press conference). If anybody does anything in their life that they value and they love, and then you stop doing it, how could it not be a tough day? I didn’t enjoy the pain I felt, but that’s a decision I made, a decision that is difficult. That’s why it took me so long to make it. I still don’t know if it’s the right decision, and I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to tell me other than time.”

Casey will serve in an administrative role with the OSU athletic department, mentoring coaches, helping with fundraising and serving as an ambassador. How long he works in that capacity is anybody’s guess. Casey himself doesn’t know. Nor does older brother Chris, in his 37th year of coaching, his 25th at the college level, his fifth as the head football coach at George Fox.

“I want Pat to do what he wants to do and where he feels at peace,” Chris Casey said. “He wants to get some mental and physical rest. Will he coach again? It’s probably a 50-50 deal. He’s a coach. He’s not an administrator. For at least the first couple of years, the door would be open for a possible return to coaching. But he needs a little bit of rest, to get away from it.

“We have the exact same goals in coaching — to develop people and to build a championship program. We’d talk after a season about how worn out you were from doing it right. It takes every ounce of what you have. And now he moves on to his new position at Oregon State. He may gravitate into administration just fine. He’ll do a great job of it.”

Could it be that OSU athletic director Scott Barnes named Pat Bailey as Pat Casey’s successor on a one-year interim basis to leave the door open for Casey’s return after that? Casey declined comment, but he sounded as if he is simply turning the program over to his former right-hand man.

“Bailes will do a great job,” Casey said. “He is a great man. He has been around the game his whole life. He has been a head coach for 26 years (11 at George Fox). He has coached in the Pac-12 for 11 years. Nobody is more qualified to take this on.”

Says Chris Casey: “Pat (Bailey) did a tremendous job at George Fox. People here talk in glowing terms about him. He’s a grinder. The guy will work forever. Pat (Casey) has total confidence in him.”

When Pat Casey went to his assistants a couple of weeks ago to tell them he was leaning toward retirement, there was at least one dissenting vote.

“Pat (Bailey) told me, ‘I don’t want you to retire,'” Casey said. “Mind you, he was in line for a big bump in salary if he were taking over the program. That tells you all you need to know about loyalty and the kind of guy he is.”

Bailey and pitching coach Nate Yeskie didn’t play at Oregon State, but nearly everyone on the OSU baseball coaching and administrative staff did, including Andy Jenkins (third-base coach), Tyler Graham (director of player development), Jake Rodriguez (director of operations) and undergrad assistants Bill Rowe and Ryan Gorton. They’re all part of the Beaver baseball family.

“That’s one of the things that is most gratifying to me, to see those kids come back and work for us,” Pat Casey said. “The fun thing about it is, those guys get to see the game from the other side. There’s a deep appreciation for that. Therefore, they do a terrific job of relating to the players. When you come back and coach, there is an unbelievable amount of wisdom you have in knowing how to do it the way all of us have chosen to do it.”

Casey isn’t sure what the future holds for him. He is nothing if unpredictable. His brother hopes it might lead to a few more moments together.

“We’ve been best friends our entire lives, yet we see each other hardly at all,” Chris Casey said. “Maybe we’ll be able to spend more time together now.”

It’s one day at a time. Presumably, Pat Casey will sleep a little more soundly as the days go on. At least for a while.

keggers@portlandtribune.com

@kerryeggers