I sat behind Mike Parker and Pat Casey during the post game show after the final game of the weekend. The Beavers beat Pacific 2-0 and swept a 3-game series for the first time all season and matched a season winning streak.
The team seemed rejuvenated by the three wins. Coach Casey looked tired. Even his shadow seemed fatigued.
The exuberant eyes that Beaver Nation had looked into the past two years were now weary and almost clouded.
For the last three years he has been adding the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has pushed this campus into the national headlines and now the necessity to keep them there seems to be bringing him down. The weight seems too much.
For Casey, the wins feel great, but it’s the losses that hurt. They hurt his pride, they hurt more than the wins feel good.
Winning has become a staple of Oregon State baseball, when they win, it’s because they are champions – this team is expected to win. And when Casey doesn’t meet expectations, it carries on him because now it reflects nationally. And that, mixed with the last three year’s schedule of on-season, recruiting, off-season practice, on-season again, has dragged him down.
“Did anyone down there ask you about what was in the papers,” Parker asked Casey before the two got on the air. “Because if not, I won’t bring it up.”
Casey said no one had asked him, but that Parker was free to bring it up. It – the topic of discussion around the ballpark – was the thought that Pat Casey might be moving on from Oregon State. A few papers are reporting that maybe he’s had enough.
Casey has coached the Beavers baseball program from nothing to back-to-back national champions. He recalled during the interview about telling a friend in the mid-90’s – while they stood in center field – that eventually Goss would be a stadium and this school would be a national power.
He’s a man of his word. And that’s what frightens Beaver Nation. Because the word now, is that Pat Casey is tired of coaching.
At the tail of the interview, Parker finally asked the question surrounding his removal from Beaver Nation. While he answered, Casey fiddled with his glasses and tapped his foot on the ground. His heel struck the ground hard enough to hear. Hard enough to feel beneath my feet.
It was not the Pat Casey I had grown accustom to watching. He looked like a man that was unsure. There were some truths, but beyond that there was a lot of doubt.
The truth it, he still wants to coach. The truth is, this is a great group of men. The truth is, he has assembled the third-best recruiting class in the nation. The truth is, he wants to come back.
The doubt was could he continue at this pace.
And although the Casey’s eyes that had the look of a champion have turned cloudy, faded and tired – the fire still burned within them. Behind the sun glasses is a man still driven to succeed, still driven to guide young men.
It’s funny that the Beaver baseball team and it’s coach are seemingly in the same predicament.
No one knows what the future holds right now and they are all hoping for the best.
As Casey comes to the end of answer Parkers question, the foot tapping stopped, he pulled his hands together and looked as calm and as collected as the Beaver leader looked for the past three seasons and said that he hoped that they still had a few games left this season.
For now, Casey isn’t worried about his final decision, just about post season aspirations. He wants to guide this group of men to another trip to Omaha. And if he chooses to leave after this season, it would feel too early but it would be fitting. Look at what he has accomplished.
He would be walking into the sunset of his career, with his shadow mostly underneath him and keeping up quiet nicely.
Casey won’t go anywhere, he loves this team too much.