Coach Joe Cassidy is Rowan basketball to the core
Some of Joe Cassidy's best memories as a college basketball coach are captured from the same angle: Off to the side and slightly in the background.
Some of Joe Cassidy's best memories as a college basketball coach are captured from the same angle: Off to the side and slightly in the background.
There's Rowan coach John Giannini and the Profs celebrating the program's only national title in 1996.
Cassidy is there, an assistant coach reveling in the moment.
There's Giannini and the Profs making the NCAA Division III Final Four in 1993 and 1995, taking the program to unprecedented heights in advance of that breakthrough in 1996.
Cassidy is there, an assistant coach doing lots of the detail work to make the magic happen.
There's Drexel coach Eddie Burke in his office in the late 1980s, buzzing through the Sunday New York Times crossword between discussions of players and strategies and upcoming opponents and some unforgettable Philadelphia Catholic League game in the mid-1970s.
Cassidy is there, marveling in his boss' range of knowledge - a four-letter word for a Shakespearean villain? - and pinching himself in awareness that he's an assistant coach of a Division I college program in his basketball-crazy hometown.
"I've been lucky," Cassidy said. "I've been around some great people and some really sharp people. People who are a lot more intelligent than I am."
That's classic 'Cass' - humble, self-depreciating, full of praise for others, a good soldier through and through.
That's why this new and unique and potentially awkward arrangement with the Rowan men's basketball program has a chance to work.
On Monday, Rowan announced a "re-structuring" of the coaching staff, with local legend Joe Crispin becoming the head coach after two years as an assistant and Cassidy stepping to the side after 20 years as the Profs' boss to become associate head coach.
This kind of thing doesn't happen at the college level. In 99 percent of the cases, a school that wants to elevate a young hot shot with big ideas and big plans will do that - and tell the old coach, "Thanks for the memories."
Rowan didn't do that. Somebody in power at the rapidly expanding university - maybe athletic director Dan Gilmore, maybe school president Ali Houshmand, maybe both - wanted Crispin as the new face of the men's program, and that's understandable.
But somebody in power also found a way to keep Cassidy involved with the team, to reward his years of service with an opportunity to stick around and improve his pension status and play a new role in the new direction of the program.
Big thumbs up to the Profs for that.
"There aren't many places where two people can make this work, but Cass and I can make this work," Crispin said. " I have so much respect for him. I can gain and glean so much from him."
Crispin grew up a three-pointer jumper - given his Curry-esque range, anyway - from Rowan, fashioned a fabled career at Pitman, scored nearly 2,000 points at Penn State, appeared briefly in the NBA and played professionally in Europe for several years.
He is 37, energetic, ambitious. He knows the game, forward and backward. He's smart and charismatic. He's going to do great things at Rowan.
But he's going to need help. Crispin has never been a head coach, at any level.
And there's nobody better positioned to smooth Crispin's transition - in experience, in temperament, in expression of the loyalty that's ingrained in his core - than Joe Cassidy.
"Cass is programmed to do the right thing," said Giannini, the head coach at La Salle. "He does the right thing every day, in his life, in his professional career, in every aspect."
It's important to note that Cassidy was a good head coach for 20 years. His teams were always prepared, disciplined, scrappy.
Cassidy is Rowan's all-time leader with 336 career victories, and he led the Profs to four appearances in the NCAA tournament and 15 appearances in the New Jersey Athletic Conference tournament.
Typical Cassidy: He doesn't look at wins or the losses in reflecting on his career as head coach.
"It's graduation week," Cassidy said. "I always tried to go to every one of my players' graduation. All these kids, their education is so much more important than basketball.
"To hear from so many of them when the change was announced, to hear from parents who thanked me for what I had done for their sons, it meant a lot. It reminded me what this is all about."
A big part of Cassidy is excited about returning to his roots, back to the basics of the sport - practice time in the gym, working with players, formulating game strategy.
The big-picture stuff, the focus on the direction of the program, that's all on Crispin now.
Rowan's new coach sees the Profs becoming "the best Division III basketball program in the country" and a team that reflects the remarkable growth in size and stature of the university.
If the Profs once again reach those lofty heights, their once-and-future assistant coach likely will be there.
He will be off to the side. He will be slightly in the background. He will be enjoying the view of the scene he quietly helped to create.
@PhilAnastasia