His Task Done, Cassidy Steps Away in Favor of Home Team
Veteran’s worth measure in the how, not the what
Mike Brohard
Over the course of 43 seasons and 521 games, there has always been a team.
Morningside College. Texas A&M, on two occasions. Florida. Nebraska. Arizona State and then Colorado State.
Now Tim Cassidy is on to his next.
“One, it’s time for me to get on the Cassidy team. It’s going to be hard to leave, but you spend 43 years doing what we’re doing, the countless hours, I missed way many more things than I should have missed,” the veteran college football administrator said. “It’s time. I’m 66-and-a-half years old. I had a paper route when I was 8-years old. My best friend and I did it together. I’ve been with a team a long, long time. The separation, it’s going to be hard.”
Not because Cassidy was great at what he did – he was, and highly sought after – but it was in the manner he got things done, many of them tasks no one ever really noticed but they always appreciated the outcome.
He came out of a brief retirement to answer the plea from Jay Norvell when he came to Colorado State. It was answering the favor of a man who looked at Cassidy like a second father, a role which was much the same legendary coach R.C. Slocum filled for him.
Norvell wanted a professionalism brought to his new program, and while he had an up-and-coming person for the role, one who had worked under a man Cassidy had once trained, he wanted Colton Bosnos to learn from the master himself. So, Cassidy came to Fort Collins as the Senior Associate Athletic Director/Football Chief of Staff.
Bosnos listened, and he learned, but watching taught him the most.
“It’s always just the way he acts. He always talks the right way to people and is always setting that tone,” said Bosnos, who after the Arizona Bowl slid into the role. “He’s not a fan of cussing, as we know, and he makes it blatant. He leads with actions, and the words come with it, too. He’s a man of integrity and values, and he’s not going to change. That’s been incredible to see.”
For Cassidy, it’s been a heck of a ride, more than he and wife Nancy bargained for when he took a volunteer role at Morningside College for his former high school football coach, hoping one day to become a coach himself.
Then he became one of the country’s first recruiting coordinators. And one of the finest. Later, he became the first chief of staff for a program, a move the rest of the country started to follow. At one point, Tory Horton called him the OG, which made Tim wonder if he was calling him “an old goat.”
He was the original, and highly sought after in both roles. He did much more than build programs. He built relationships.
“We needed somebody to really help us formulate the program at a Power 4 level. Tim’s helped us to do that,” Norvell said. “He organized our structure of the way we work as a staff, the professionalism that these young coaches have learned about following the rules. Tim has always done a great job of teaching staff’s that. I think it’s helped us grow and mature, and function like a big-time program, like we want CSU to be. Tim has helped that transition and we’re in a different place now as a program. I think were set up to really take another step on how we function moving forward. Tim’s had a lot to do with that.”
He can get a team from here to there, feed them and take care of all their needs. He does that for Norvell, too, the same way he has served other coaches. Build their schedules and remind them of key dates. He can do that with a two-week calendar and one which covers the entire year. Norvell’s wife, Kim, also has a copy.
For a guy who didn’t play college football to have the rewards we have … It’s hard to talk about. I’m not talking the bowl games. I’m talking about all the feedback.Tim Cassidy
He can meet with the campus administration, the marketing team and the business office. He has helped schools raise money for new buildings, even aid in the design. He can stimulate minds and generate ideas which help a program – and in turn – a campus grow.
All of it was important for Bosnos to come to understand, but what stuck with him most was the way Cassidy went about the tasks. It wasn’t by phone. It wasn’t setting up meetings in his office.
About every other day, the two could be seen walking from Canvas Stadium to the McGraw Athletic Center. There was always someone to speak with, and there were always additional stops. To simply say hello and check in. Tell a joke. Share a laugh. Or if the person was away from their desk, rearrange it a bit, for fun.
As the understudy came to understand, meeting people on their terms sends a message of bonding, of trust, of unity.
“You start seeing why he’s doing certain things. He has a reason why he’s doing certain things,” Bosnos said. “You see it over the course of three years. First year, OK. Second year, OK. The third year, this is why we’re doing it and now we’re seeing the end results of things we want to get accomplished here, and it’s those relationships he’s started.
“I’m in a much better spot than I ever was. I learned the blue collar. The guy who taught me at Nevada – blue collar, hard work – was Vince Hug. Tim taught Vince. Then he taught me, and now I’m with Tim. I got the full circle. What time taught me was the relationships, the development, how to run it from a leadership position. You have the blue and white collar, but it was fun to complete that circle working with him.”
Tim has closed many a circle during his career, and every step of the way, Nancy was more than along for the ride.
Neither of them knew exactly what they were getting into when Tim first accepted the volunteer job just 13 months after the two were married. Nancy didn’t understand the role she would play.
“I was all in. It’s funny because I always wanted to move someplace else to spread our wings, and we still have best friends we grew up with who live one block away from where they grow up and never leave Omaha,” she said. “That was the best thing for us. I was all on board with trying new things. We were young and didn’t know any better. It was fun. It was a great journey.”
At every stop, she would teach accounting at the college for which Tim worked, a 30-year teaching career. She always had her second job, especially in the early days, as the assistant recruiting director. They both came to understand their relationship, which produced three children and now four grandchildren, would have a lasting impact on people.
“You never knew the eyes that were on you,” she explained. “Hold open a door. Give you a kiss. Kids pick up on all of that.”
The journey has produced more friends than they can count, definitely more people who cite them as major influences on their life than they could have dreamed.
Tim can read off a who’s-who in the field for whom has worked for or with. The same for the players he recruited to a school. The memories of those people were collected for Tim in a video presented during the final week of the regular season.
One in particular said nothing but spoke volumes.
It was Greg Hill, a player Tim found at Dallas Carter High School and brought to Texas A&M. He would rush for 212 yards in his first game as a freshman, eventually becoming a first-round NFL draft pick who had a six-year career.
“He doesn’t say a thing,” Nancy said. “In the video he lifts up a tremendous bowl of strawberry shortcake and starts eating it and says, ‘you know what I’m talking about.’”
They did.
“Every week, she would make him strawberry shortcake,” Tim said. For others, it was cookies. Or cheesecake. Because early on, they both realized they were not recruiting players for a football team, but essentially inviting them to join a new family.
He was new to Texas when he convinced Jackie Sherrill to hire him at Texas A&M the first time, even at the salary he requested. They were new to Florida when he went to the Gators. It was a dream come true when they returned home to work for Nebraska. They couldn’t pass up the opportunity to return to the Aggies, nor to start anew at Arizona State.
It was at Nebraska where he first met Norvell, then they reconnected at Arizona State. That was going to be his last stop. Then Norvell called and coaxed him back into business.
“Truthfully, he’s the only guy I would do it for. I told him when I took the job, I like to think we’re close friends, but I’m not coming here to be your buddy. He said I don’t want you to. I’m the guy who tells you stuff you don’t necessarily want to hear.
“Here’s what coach told me. I want you to come and tell all the young man here every story. Not just Colton, but all the young coaches to hear every story. And I have a lot in 43 years, and I think somewhat interesting stories. Poor Colton, he can repeat them”
More importantly, he can repeat what he was taught.
The day after Christmas, Colorado State held its first bowl practice, and on the drive to the complex, Norvell saw Rudy’s Country Store and B-B-Q. Just offhand, Norvell said seeing the place made him crave some ribs.
So, while the team practiced, Bosnos returned to the restaurant, and when Norvell went into the locker room to change, he found a to-go box of ribs.
“He is trying to set an example for everybody. He’s sacrificing more than anybody knows,” Bosnos said. “It’s doing little things. It’s taking care of him as a person, doing small things like that that I hope build that relationship, our working relationship, and that helps him as a coach. If I take care of him as a person, then he can take care of the 200 people in his organization.”
Just the way he was shown.
Because in the role, you’ll never know who you will reach, how you will do so and the impact it makes. Even to this day, Tim is reminded.
“For a guy who didn’t play college football to have the rewards we have … It’s hard to talk about,” Tim said. “I’m not talking the bowl games. I’m talking about all the feedback. Jernias (Tafia) and I have become buddies, and we were talking about something. He played for Sam Adams, a kid I recruited 30 years ago, a great NFL player. Jernias said, ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me. You’re the reason I’m staying.’
“Of all the different people, I thought, what was that connection? When Jernias came here, Sam had told him, you listen to whatever Coach Cassidy tells you. And I had to tell him some hard stuff. He told me I was one of the few guys who were honest with me.”
Those moments make it hard to leave. For someone as gifted at building relationships as Tim is, there never feels like a perfect time to step away. He’s not just leaving a football program, he’s leaving a dear friend in Norvell, someone he and Nancy have traveled the world with on vacation. A trusted confidant.
How does either side say goodbye?
In the locker room following the win over Utah State, Norvell gave a game ball to Tim, informing the room none of them would ever comprehend all the man did for them behind the scenes to make their college careers more meaningful. Before the game, with his family in attendance, they presented Tim with a jersey.
At the final practice in Tucson, as is tradition, Norvell had the final senior. The rest of the team forms a tunnel as the senior players and managers slap hands and take out a pad and land on bigger pads to break the fall.
On this occasion, much to the joy of all in attendance, a senior administrator who never played college football gave it his best shot.
The truth is, Tim will never fully step away. Nancy is convinced he’ll do some consulting, but at least he can do that on his own terms, giving them more than three full weekends a year to spend together and with family. They will move to their home in Scottsdale, Ariz., but Tim will always be a phone call away.
Jay will use it to get advice from the man he considers a father figure, just to hear his voice or plan their next vacation. Bosnos predicts Tim will call him more to tell him what he’s doing wrong more than he’ll call his mentor for advice. Either way, the connection will be welcomed.
But now is the time to step away because he feels the Rams are on an upward trajectory. He almost left last season, but the loss to Hawaii broke his heart, and both he and his wife knew they had to stay.
Now, another team is calling, one they’ve always loved with full heart and soul. It’s their time, and this move will produce for Tim and Nancy more time to do so.
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