Appeal Tribune
܂ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2018܂ 1B
Sports
‘It’s been awesome’
OSU coach Pat Casey has announced plans to retire. KARL MAASDAM
Pat Casey retiring after successful run as OSU baseball coach
Gary Horowitz
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
CORVALLIS — Oregon State
baseball coach Pat Casey is going
out on top.
Casey, who led the Beavers to a
third national championship in
June, announced his retirement
Sept. 6.
"It's just been an unbelievable
honor for me. It's been awesome,"
an emotional Casey said of his 24
seasons at OSU.
OSU athletic director Scott
Barnes said Pat Bailey, who served
as an assistant coach and asso-
ciate head coach under Casey for 11
years, will be interim coach. A na-
tional search will begin after the
2019 season.
Casey, 59, had a career record of
900-458-6 at OSU, with national
championships in 2006, 2007 and
2018, and six appearances in the
College World Series in Omaha.
Casey did not rule out coaching
again, but said he didn't have the
passion necessary to continue at
OSU.
"My problem is what I expect
out of my players on the field, I ex-
pect out of myself," Casey said.
"Right now I'm not positive that I
can give that same effort that I ex-
pect of them.
"I’m not sure I can’t, but I will
never put the uniform on unless I
do it with that same passion as I
expect of them."
He will remain at OSU as a sen-
ior associate athletics director/
special assistant to Barnes. Ca-
sey's current contract pays him
$5.5 million from 2016 through
2022.
A perennial power
Casey turned the Beavers into a
perennial national power with a
nucleus of players from the North-
west.
Under Casey, OSU reached the
CWS in 2005 for the first time since
1952. He led the Beavers to the
school's first national title in 2006,
and a repeat championship the fol-
lowing year.
Casey was named National
Coach of the Year by at least one
organization in five different sea-
sons, including 2018.
Barnes said right deck at Goss
Stadium will be named Casey Cor-
ner.
"He's had a Hall of Fame career
for sure," Barnes said. "We talk
about a legacy, certainly three na-
tional championships in a place
where a lot of folks, (in) the North-
west, didn't think maybe that
could happen."
Final season memorable
Casey's final team was among
his best.
The 2018 Beavers culminated a
55-12-1 season by winning the Col-
lege World Series, the final game a
5-0 win June 28 behind a sterling
performance by freshman pitcher
Kevin Abel.
It also didn't come to that. The
Beavers were one out away from
being eliminated by Arkansas in
Game 2 of the CWS, but rallied for a
5-3 win.
The team featured three first-
round selections in the 2018 Major
League Baseball Draft — second
baseman Nick Madrigal, outfielder
See CASEY, Page 2B
The sublime season in Oregon’s outdoors is now
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
The sound of several hundred vehicle
exhausts was music to my ears.
The mass migration on Monday con-
sisted mostly of RVs and pickup trucks
packed with camping gear, many sport-
ing campers and/or towing boats.
All of them lumbering west on High-
way 22 from the campground at Detroit
Lake State Park and from Mongold boat
ramp just west of the park as well as the
marinas in the town of Detroit and
points east.
For most of the sunburned, bleary-
eyed, bone-weary holiday-makers, La-
bor Day marked the end of the summer
recreation season.
For my formerly employed self as
well as my current incarnation as a retir-
ee, the shoulder season between the
summer-ending
three-day-weekend
scrum and the first really nasty winter
weather is a sublime time in the out-
doors.
Campgrounds are virtually empty,
often even on weekends, and chilly
nights keep gnawing insects somewhat
at bay.
While fish remain abundant and are
fattening up as waters cool (eventually,
oh please!)
BONUS!
For those wanting to extend the mag-
ic, it’s just been confirmed by Desert
Springs Trout Farm near Summer Lake
There’s a long line of assorted vehicles waiting to turn west onto Highway 22 at
Detroit Lake State Park at the end of the three-day Labor Day weekend.
PHOTOS BY HENRY MILLER/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
that the scheduled delivery of 15,000-
plus rainbow trout, barring unforeseen
problems, will be dropped into Detroit
Lake before Sept. 8.
It’s the last trout plant on the sched-
ule for Detroit in 2018, although hold-
overs will be available there all winter
long.
The mop-up stocking schedules for
the rest of the year at other water bodies
around the state are online at https://
myodfw.com/fishing/species/trout/
stocking-schedule.
The downside to early fall outdoor
adventures is that until there is measur-
able rain, rivers and streams are at end-
of-summer lows, as are reservoirs on
the east side of the Cascade Range that
are operated for agricultural irrigation.
A separate potential buzz-kill on the
converse side of the precipitation situa-
tion is that weather tends to be some-
what, shall we say, “changeable” during
the shoulder season.
As my brother-in-law, Bob, and I dis-
covered during two post-Labor Day
weeklong camping trips to the east side
that we did a couple of years apart.
During the first, we were in T-shirts
and hiking pants during the day, and
awoke to a quarter-inch of snow on the
picnic table, a half-frozen water jug and
a couple of damp towels hung up to dry
that were as fluffy, soft and absorbent as
plywood.
That was at Three Creeks Lake west
of Sisters.
Another time we were blown out in a
massive sleet storm at Wallowa Lake in
the northeast corner of the state.
The only guy who looked more sod-
den and bedraggled was a guy who has
been lead-footing it through the frozen
rain on a motorcycle for two hours head-
ing west out of Idaho.
The most memorable washout,
though, was a trip to the southern Ore-
gon coast, where I awoke in a torrential
downpour at Humbug Mountain State
Park and peered out of the tent flap to
see the campfire wood floating by on a
newly created lake.
Ah, good times.
In other fall highlights:
Item 1: The Willamette Valley Mush-
room Society, Salem’s own group of
wild-fungus aficionados, cranks up for
the season with the first meeting at 7
p.m. on Oct. 1 at Woodland Chapel, 582
High St.
The topic is “The Basics of Mush-
room ID” by longtime member Dale
See OUTDOORS, Page 2B