NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: Willis Casey
Casey becomes much more lovable when reviewing his coaching record, his administrative successes and the accomplishments of the athletics department under his guidance. Not to mention his enormous impact on both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the NCAA.
Reclusive and uncomfortable in the spotlight, Casey probably wouldn't embrace his deserved induction into the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame on April 13 any more than he embraced being inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Swimming Hall of Fame and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame.
Casey will join basketball players Rodney Monroe and Trudi Lacey, golfer Tim Clark, swimmer Cullen Jones and the 1983 NCAA championship team in the fourth class of inductees into the hall.
Few people had more impact on Wolfpack athletics than Casey from the day he was hiredat the same time as legendary basketball coach Everett Case, former major league pitcher Vic Sorrell and football coach Beattie Feathers in their sportsto be NC State's swimming coach on July 1, 1946.
In 23 years as a swimming coach, he won 11 Southern Conference and ACC swimming title, produced four NCAA individual champions, nine AAU individual titles and two AAU team titles. His Wolfpack teams owned a 189-23 record (.892 winning percentage) in dual meets and 33 of his swimmers won All-America honors. And every one of his scholarship swimmers, at his insistence, earned an NC State degree.
Among his greatest achievements, Casey said, was winning the 1964 AAU outdoor national championship with just five swimmers, easily defeating teams that brought more than two dozen swimmers to the event.
NC State's swimming complex, the Willis R. Casey Natatorium, is named in his memory.
While serving as a successful coach, Casey was the only assistant to athletics director Roy Clogston. He was the manager of Reynolds Coliseum and was the tournament director for the Dixie Classic and the ACC basketball championships, handling the department's finances.
"He was a master at budgeting and controlling finances," Weedon once said.
In 17 years as Clogston's successor, Casey's department won 49 ACC titles, two NCAA team titles, two AIAW (Association in Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the early governing body for women's sports) and 15 individual national championships. He turned a $700,000 budget that was $100,000 in debt into a $9 million annual budget that was always black when he retired.
Shortly after the passage of the 1972 Education Acts, Case became one of the first leaders at a Division I coach to embrace women's athletics. He hired Kay Yow to start women's athletics at NC State, with the full expectation that she would create successful programs. He approved a total of 50 scholarships for women athletes in volleyball, slow-pitch softball and basketball.
Casey had an uncanny knack for identifying talented young coaches. During his tenure, he hired Yow, Lou Holtz, Jim Valvano, Dick Sheridan, Don Easterling,
Bob Guzzo,
Rollie Geiger, Richard Sykes, George Tarantini and Mark Stevenson, just to name a few.
https://gopack.com/news/2018/8/7/swimming-2018-nc-state-athletic-hall-of-fame-willis-casey.aspx