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NCAA baseball: Oregon State coach Pat Casey retires

By Benjamin Chase

Omaha, NE - JUNE 27: Head coach Pat Casey #5 of the Oregon State Beavers looks onto the field, prior to game two of the College World Series Championship Series against the Arkansas Razorbacks on June 27, 2018 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
Omaha, NE - JUNE 27: Head coach Pat Casey #5 of the Oregon State Beavers looks onto the field, prior to game two of the College World Series Championship Series against the Arkansas Razorbacks on June 27, 2018 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images) /
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Oregon State gave Pat Casey a perfect way to retire: an NCAA baseball championship.

After one of the most tumultuous seasons of his storied NCAA baseball coaching career, Oregon State head coach Pat Casey went out on top, retiring this week after winning the 2018 College World Series.

Intending to move to a role in the athletic director’s office with Oregon State, Pat Casey announced his retirement on Thursday. He’s taken the Oregon State program from an afterthought on the NCAA baseball stage, a team that UCLA or Cal State-Fullerton would schedule for an “easy win”, to essentially the most dominant team in all of NCAA baseball this millennium.

Not even 60 years old, Casey’s entire press conference came off as a man who was not really ready to be done coaching, but he was absolutely worn out coaching in that environment. While his name was never mentioned directly, it’s hard to understate the additional stress that the ordeal of Luke Heimlich the last two seasons has added to Casey’s normally high stress level and perfectionism with his team.

Though not mentioning that situation, it certainly had to be part of his comment as he stated this on Thursday:

"“If we could just coach, guys would coach for a long time. But that’s not how it works. I get it. It’s life. Life’s not easy.”"

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Casey has established the upper Northwest as a dominant area for NCAA baseball, seeing cross-state rival Oregon jump back into baseball in 2009 and excel and facing conference rival Washington in Omaha this year on their path toward a championship.

While he walks away a winner, with 3 titles in the 2000s and over 900 wins, the legacy he leaves will be sadly mixed with that of his final two seasons, not the legacy of revitalizing the game in the upper Northwest (perhaps to the point where MLB even moves another team in the area?) for NCAA baseball, not the legacy of sending players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Conforto, and Darwin Barney to the major leagues, and not the legacy of three first-round picks this season with a very feasible #1 overall selection in 2019 on the team he leaves behind.

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Sadly, the legacy that Pat Casey leaves in NCAA baseball at this moment is a legacy intertwined with the actions of one of his players a half-decade ago. Casey’s fire for the game was still evident in his press conference. Perhaps he could find another destination and revitalize that fire to put a better final stamp on his enduring legacy in NCAA baseball.

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