Under Chris Casey, players were ‘better human beings than when they went in’

Chris Casey is calling it quits after a highly successful 43-year coaching career

It’s the end of an era at George Fox. Chris Casey — the only head coach the Bruins have known since the football program was reinstated in 2014 — is retiring.

Casey, 66, told his staff on Sunday and his players during a Monday night meeting of his decision to retire, ending a coaching career that has spanned 43 years.

For the last three years, Casey has pondered retirement.

“I thought very seriously about it for the first time after the 2022 season,” he says. “I got home and thought it through during the Christmas break. I thought about it after the 2023 season, too — it was about 50-50 whether I would come back or hang it up. I went through the same process after this past season, knowing there was an even better chance I might retire. And that is what I have decided to do.

“This is the right decision for me, even though it is very difficult. I am going to miss it dearly, but it is the right decision.”

Casey built the George Fox program from scratch. The Bruins had little football tradition. They were mostly doormats from the team’s inception in 1894 to its final year of football in 1968, when school officials chose to shutter the program after an 0-8 season in the Oregon Collegiate Conference.

Under the direction of school president Robin Baker, the program was reinstated in 2014, partially as a way to lure more students to the campus. Casey started with a “zero year” in 2013, recruiting players to a program that had no record and little selling point.

The Bruins were 1-8 the first season but, by the third year, they were winners. Casey did not have another losing campaign until 2023. For six straight years, they finished second or third in the Northwest Conference. His overall record through 10 years is 50-47; his conference mark is 37-33. Take away an 0-9 record to perennial power Linfield and those figures are 50-38 and 37-24.

Casey ends his career with back-to-back losing seasons, going 4-6 overall both years — 3-4 in NWC play in 2023 and 2-5 in 2024 — but he wasn’t fired. This was totally his decision.

The Bruins had an injury-plagued season in ’24.

“We lost both tight ends and three starting offensive linemen,” Casey says. “By the end of the fourth game, those guys were done for the season. Overall, we lost 12 players for the season. It was without question the most season-ending injuries and life circumstances with players that happened for a team in my coaching career.”

Casey also had a health issue midway through the season, landing in the hospital for three days and missing a game due to a bowel obstruction.

“But that didn’t play much into my decision,” he says. “And it wasn’t because of last season. It’s almost more of a need than a want.”

After the 2018 baseball season, Casey’s younger brother — Pat — retired as head coach at Oregon State after winning his third national championship. Pat Casey felt he could no longer commit total effort to the job at hand, and said it wasn’t fair to the university, his coaches and his players to continue. Chris Casey’s reasons are similar.

“The only way to coach is to totally dive into the lives of your players, as people, students and athletes,” Casey tells me. “To do that takes a tremendous amount out of you, especially being a head coach. I knew there would come a time when I wasn’t going to want to continue working at that pace. I certainly could still do it, but it’s time for me to not work at that pace anymore.”

In 2021, Chris invited me to spend a game day getting an inside look at his program. I wrote the following story about the experience here. 

In the story, Casey revealed his feelings about the pressures involved.

“What it takes to win one football game is astronomical,” he said then. “It takes everything out of you. There are so many highs and lows through the week and in a game. Pat and I have always said, the way we’re both wired, unless we can totally give ourselves to our players in every way, we shouldn’t be coaching.”

When I asked Chris how long he would continue to coach, he said this: “At the end of each season, I evaluate myself. … The day I don’t give 100 percent championship-level effort, I’m getting out, because then I’m not giving the players my best.”

Casey figures that time is now.

“All the issues that come up — what I call life circumstances with players — for awhile during my time in coaching, I got better at handling that,” he says. “In the last few years, though, it has been harder on me than ever before. I will wake up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning and worry about an issue a player is going through. When you have 120 guys in the program, that’s a lot of things to worry about.”

Casey cites a comment made by Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton, who said, “Coaches are list-makers. Good coaches are always making lists.”

“I constantly am making a list, adding to a list, making a new list, of things that need to be done,” Casey says. “The list never ends. Football is such a team sport. There are so many intricacies, so many moving parts. You never get a break. You are always thinking football, even when you are on vacation.

“It is time for me to not make a list all day, every day. I am at a point where I am not willing to do that anymore.”

Casey has dreaded getting to this moment.

“I feel guilty retiring,” he says. “I have had a sick feeling — almost a flu-like feeling — the last three or four days knowing I have to tell the players. I don’t have any problem stepping away for any other reason than the assistant coaches and the players. That is the only thing that bothers me. We have such close relationships. I hate seeing that end for me; I hate seeing that end for them.”

Casey will have more time to devote to family. His wife of 38 years, Kathleen, is a cancer survivor. They have four children and five grandchildren.

“My wife and my children have been absolutely supportive of my career,” Chris says. “It has been a total team effort by my family. Kathleen wouldn’t have cared if I continued to coach until I have put in 50 years of coaching. But it is time now to spend more time with her, and with them.”

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Casey is a Newberg native, one of seven siblings raised in an Irish Catholic household by Fred and Bev Casey. The Caseys lived a block from the George Fox campus; Chris and Pat served as ball boys for the football team (then called the Quakers) in the late ‘60s.

After two years at Mount Hood Community College, Casey wound up his playing career with two seasons as a 5-9, 185-pound strong safety for the legendary Ad Rutschman at Linfield. Casey’s position coach was Mike Riley.

“Was Chris ever a tough guy,” says Riley, who would go on to an esteemed coaching career of nearly 50 years that included three years as head coach of the San Diego Chargers and 14 at Oregon State. “He prepared, played physically and was a super young man to coach — very typical of the passion Linfield had for playing football and for winning.

“And then it became obvious he was going to be a good coach. That’s what he wanted to do. He grew up as a player being prepared. As a coach, he had real substance in his program. It was valuable in all ways to be a player in his program. You were going to learn some great life lessons and also be coached. Chris certainly did that in the Linfield way and the Ad Rutschman way. He was truly a teacher. He taught guys how to play and had a real system to do it.”

Casey spent 10 seasons coaching under Rutschman at Linfield.

“Chris is a winner,” says Rutschman, 93 and still coaching special teams at Linfield. “He was going to find a way to win. He was a hard worker. He didn’t make any excuses. If something didn’t work out right, he recognized that and was going to fix it. He was very committed to whatever the task is. His word was always good.

“Sports, especially football, needs people like Chris. We can’t afford to lose people like him. I don’t like the way education looks at sports anymore. Chris looked at it the way it needs to be looked at. Sports are as important as the classroom. People coming out of his program were going to be better human beings than when they went in.”

It is ironic that Linfield stood between Casey and winning a conference championship, and that he was never able to beat his alma mater.

“I have never made a big deal about that,” he says. “That was just another game to me. Every game we played in league was for the league championship — that is how we approached it. Yeah, we would like to have beaten them, because they have been an outstanding team. Their record stands for itself. I coached (Linfield coach) Joe Smith. There were some years where I had coached almost every guy on their staff.”

The Casey coaching tree is broad. Of 13 coaches on his 2024 staff, 11 of them played for him.

“Some of the guys have coached with me at three places,” he says. “It is nice when you have guys who totally believe in the program.”

Both of his George Fox coordinators have been with him from the start. Defensive coordinator John Bates played for and coached with him at Whitworth, and also coached two seasons for him at Aloha.

“My second year coaching with him at Whitworth, we won the conference for the first time ever,” Bates says.

Bates calls the news of Casey’s retirement “personally tough for me.”

“He is a man I look up to,” he says. “I love the man. I have loved the opportunity to get close to him. He has all the things it takes to be a great coach. I will truly miss working with him.”

Offensive coordinator Ken Ingram, who began coaching with Casey at Aloha in 2004, is also taking his retirement hard.

“It is probably really good for Chris, but he is so good for our players and our program, it is a sad thing for me,” Ingram says. “I learned a lot from him, in coaching and how to deal with people. He helps our players become better in life. That’s the tough part about it. But he can’t do it forever. It does take its toll.”

I learned first-hand how beloved Casey is in 2021 when I walked into the dining hall with him for the team’s pregame meal. We were the last two to arrive. As we walked in, 120 players rose to their feet for a standing ovation. “Ca-sey! Ca-sey!” They chanted. It lasted for maybe a minute. That tradition continued through the end of the ’24 season.

“It started before I got here,” says Dylan Gabriel, then a player and a member of the coaching staff this past season. “Whenever he comes into a room for a meeting or before practice, everybody stops what they are doing and claps and cheers him on. … we have done it for four or five minutes straight. Sometimes it will die down a little bit and somebody stands up and gets everybody going again.”

If that is not a show of respect, I have not seen one.

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After leaving Linfield, Casey spent 10 years as defensive coordinator at Whitworth, then took over an Aloha High team that had won 17 games in the previous 14 seasons. He gradually built up the program and, in 2010, the Warriors won a 6A state championship.

Casey feels indebted to many.

“My parents have been such a great influence,” he says. “We learned work ethic and competitiveness and togetherness from them. Coach Rutschman has had the most impact on my coaching career outside of my parents. At Whitworth, (head coach) John Tully  taught me a lot about being a head coach.

“Robin Baker is the guy responsible for bringing football back to George Fox. His passion, his vision to bring football back has proved a big part of my life. I am thankful for him and my time at George Fox.”

I tell Casey he must take great pride in building the foundation of the program at George Fox.

“I am, but it has been all of us,” he says. “It has been the administration — Robin Baker and (athletic directors) Craig Taylor and Adam Puckett. It has been coaches; it has been players. We have developed a very good program. Our identity was always to develop championship people and build a championship program. I think we have done that in both areas. We haven’t won a championship, but we have built it toward a championship-level program.”

Puckett, George Fox’s athletic director since 2017, feels that way, too.

“Retiring is awesome,” he says. “I’m excited for Chris, but I am also excited for us. He has done an amazing job building the program over the past 10 years. It’s in a good spot. Now we get an opportunity to start a new chapter and take it even further. The timing is right. When we post the job opening on Tuesday, we truly believe it will be one of the best Division III coaching jobs available in the country.”

Baker has great respect for what Casey has accomplished at George Fox.

“Chris was our first coach after the return of football and was perfect for us,” he says. “He wants to win, but he also seeks to build men of character. For George Fox, there was no one better in the role. I can think of few leaders whom I admire more. We will miss him and be hard-pressed to find someone who will lead as well.”

What will Casey miss most about coaching?

“Without question, my relationships with the players and coaches,” he says. “I am not a very smart guy, but I am a hard worker. Now I have to find other things to work hard at, because that is how I live life.”

What might that be?

“I will take some time off initially,” he says. “I believe I will get back into football in a semi-retired thing. I don’t want to be in a leadership position. I don’t want to be a head coach or coordinator. But I could see myself helping coach a position for a high school team, or with people who want help with some football-related process they are going through. I want to help anybody who wants to develop young people through football.”

Casey is a man of great Christian faith.

“There is no question that I have always felt the Lord’s calling for me through coaching has been to develop young men to be the best future husbands, fathers, workers, citizens and community members they can be,” he says. “I will continue to do that in some minor capacity.”

I can’t imagine Chris Casey doing anything in “minor” fashion. Whatever he does will surely have a major impact. It’s the Casey way.

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