Cassleman Steps Down As WSU Women’s Coach

The time demands of coaching and the time demands of raising four sons have increasingly conflicted, causing Rob Cassleman to resign as Washington State’s women’s track and field and cross country coach.

Cassleman said the move was something he had been considering all year.

Marcia Saneholtz, WSU senior associate athletic director, said a review of the program and search for a successor will begin next week.

“You reach a point where you have to do what’s best for you,” said Cassleman, who, along with his wife Jessica, has been at WSU 13 years. “We decided this was right for us.”

His Cougars are coming off a last-place finish in the Pacific-10 Conference meet, having scored just 15 points.

Jessica Cassleman served as head track coach for two seasons before turning the job over to her husband in 1985 to start their family.

Seven-day work weeks and travel conspire to keep coaches from their families, Rob Cassleman said. “When the kids start asking why you’re going again, it gets hard to answer.”

A change, Cassleman said, will be good for the program.

“When you get to the point where you put as much effort in and come up ninth (in the conference) and eighth the year before,” Cassleman said, “that’s certainly not the direction I had foreseen for the program. And I don’t think that (athletic director) Rick (Dickson) or Marcia had that in mind either.”