The Eugene Register-Guard
Pat Casey is considering stepping down as Oregon State’s baseball coach after 17 seasons in Corvallis and two College World Series championships.
“There have been conversations,” Casey told The Oregonian on Wednesday. “I can’t tell you that’s something that I haven’t been thinking about.”
If he were to step down, Casey would accept an administrative position in the OSU athletic department, the newspaper reported.
Casey, 52, spoke to the newspaper before a meeting with OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis on Wednesday morning. Casey is expected to make a decision on his future in the next few weeks.
An OSU spokesman said Wednesday afternoon that the athletic department had no comment on the report.
Casey, a 10th-round draft pick by the San Diego Padres, played seven seasons in the minor leagues. He was hired at Oregon State in the summer of 1994 after seven seasons at George Fox, a NAIA school in his hometown of Newberg.
Casey is 578-356-4 at Oregon Sate, the second-winningest coach in school history behind Jack Riley, who won 613 games in 22 seasons before retiring in 1994.
Casey led the Beavers to back-to-back Pac-10 titles in 2005 and 2006, sparking a run of three straight trips to the College World Series. With their national titles in 2006 and 2007, they became just the fifth program to win back-to-back CWS titles.
The Beavers have reached the postseason six of the past seven seasons.
This past season, OSU was picked to finish eighth in the Pac-10 preseason coaches’ poll before rising up to No. 2 in one national poll and advancing to the Super Regionals.
In the last eight years, the Beavers have had 49 players selected in the major league draft, including current major league All-Star Jacoby Ellsbury of the Boston Red Sox, plus Darwin Barney of the Chicago Cubs, Joe Paterson of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Mike Stutes of the Philadelphia Phillies.
