Cassie Seth is one step closer to running her own program.
West Liberty named Seth its associate head coach for women’s basketball. The move bumps her up from the assistant coach position in her fourth year with the program.
The next step is coming. She knows it. It may be next season; it may be 10 years from now. That part doesn’t concern her.
What does concern Seth is the upcoming season. It’s an exciting time for the Lady Hilltoppers’ program.
Seth is now further entwined in the program where she coaches alongside one of her best friends in head coach Kyle Cooper.
The two grew up in the same community. Seth went off to Mercyhurst, where the all-conference guard scored more than 1,000 points during her career.
She holds a business degree from Mercyhurst and a master’s degree in sports business management from Valparaiso.
Those keep her near the game, but it’s coaching that keeps Seth whole. She cut her teeth at Parma near Cleveland for seven seasons. She coached both the high school team and on the AAU circuit.
From there, she took the opportunity to leap to the collegiate ranks at nearby Baldwin Wallace University in Berea.
While she intended to stay longer, that stint lasted one season. That’s when Cooper, who’d just taken over for the legendary Lynn Ullom, called up his old friend and asked her to help.
Together, the two have helped the Hilltoppers win better than 50 percent of their games. That includes a 21-win season in 2018-19 that reached the NCAA tournament.
Seth is doing a job she loves and gets to work with one of her favorite people. What could be better than that? Being a head coach? Maybe, but right now, that’s not her concern.
One step closer to carrying the big whistle on the NCAA level. Was this your hope and part of the reason for leaving Baldwin Wallace and coming to West Liberty initially?
Not necessarily. I left the High School coaching ranks for the opportunity to advance my career, but for the right opportunity with high-level quality coaches who were winners in all aspects in Coach Harrer & Coach Hartzler. Coach Cooper and I being longtime friends had always said if things aligned one way or another, we would be each other’s top candidate. The timing of these things in life aren’t always in our control, and Coach Cooper honestly is the only person I would’ve left BW for at that time. I’ve always been a believer in the Pat Summit philosophy “you win in life with people”… . Advancing in my career has always been in part because I’ve pursued people not paychecks.
When named associate head coach, it usually comes with the expectation of being groomed as head coach. Is that part of the equation? How will your role change this season in comparison to seasons past?
I don’t really think about that a lot as I am all in with the current job that I’m asked to do. I can’t get caught up in “expectations” or some 5-year plan of how things are “supposed to be” because it will take away time and energy from me doing the best I can right now. And let’s be honest; does anyone’s 5-year plan work out exactly how they envisioned? I believe that if I do my job the right way, surround myself with the right people, take ownership of everything I do and serve others to the best of my ability, then the right opportunities will come. And as I have in the past, I’ll evaluate those when they pop up. But like I said before, I’m in the pursuit of people in this industry. Right now, I have the privilege of being beside one of my best friends.
You and Coach Cooper seem like a team when it comes to recruiting, as well as other duties. Given your past history from before West Liberty, does it make working alongside each other all the easier?
Our dynamic doesn’t make this seem hardly like work at all. Don’t get it confused; we work our tails off, and Coach Cooper sets the standard with that in how he lives his life; that’s not what I mean by that. But I get to do what I’m passionate about with one of my best friends at a university and with an administration that are just as passionate about wanting us to succeed and supporting that. And as a result, the student-athletes we get to lead come to be a part of a family where they don’t have to look far to see that we don’t just sell family; we live it.
Will those increased responsibilities affect your home life? Or is making it work almost second nature at this point?
One of the reasons Division II basketball has always appealed to me is because of the opportunity to maintain a healthy life balance both as a player & now as a Coach. It does take some work being intentional about taking care of all aspects of my life: personal, professional, emotional & physical…. but I learned how to do these things as a Division II athlete & it has become part of my lifestyle.
The Hilltoppers have some quality returnees plus a nice incoming class of players. Have you had to modify your offseason workouts much? Do you expect it to have any impact on the team’s readiness come the fall?
We had to make some adjustments this off-season, mainly because of the circumstances surrounding the pandemic & the unknown’s that came/come with that. We lost our kids for what would’ve been a traditional mini-camp in the postseason. The shift to voluntary at-home workouts had to be made until we were granted CARA (countable athletically related activities) by the NCAA, which then just meant we could do them virtually. As this has progressed into the summer months & their home gyms started to reopen, we could get back into a more traditional voluntary summer program. So, it’s been an adjustment. But our players have handled the adversity very well. We are proud of how hard they are working regardless of the circumstances. One of Coach Cooper’s big messages to them this whole time has been to stay ready… We can’t control what’s going on around us. But we can control how ready we are when our number is called. And I believe they’ve taken that message very seriously & I am excited to get them back on campus.
