Across the room admiration

By Mike MacLean

Funny thing about news; it can still travel slowly, even among those trained in its dissemination.

It was only a few months ago that I learned of Casey’s passing, and just today that I stumbled upon this page. An old colleague from The Collegian had mentioned the recent reunion, which prompted a Googling, and up came this page.

Casey joined The Collegian during my senior year at UMass. By that time my role had been reduced from the previous year, so I only worked with her for a brief time, and we worked different beats, so I did not get much of a chance to get to know her. Yet as a closeted sports fan hiding over behind the Arts desk, I always admired her confidence - that sense of knowing what you want and going for it.

Being able, as a Freshman, to walk in the front door of your student paper knowing that not only are you going to write, but that you’re going to join the sports desk and put your opinions toe-to-toe with the guys in the trenches. If she was ever scared or nervous about it, she never let it show, which is also crucial to those daily sports debates we got to overhear from across the room, during which she was never shy about standing up for her opinions.

That takes a special level of determination and self-confidence. Life itself is not only short, it’s also unpredictable and unbiased. It has an end, that much we’re sure of, but the rub is that the ending is unscripted.

So as those of us who knew her in college approach our 30s, and some may believe, our first full “adult” decade, we should all take time to reflect and learn something from Casey and the others in our lives who have demonstrated their own brand of grit. If we could all take a moment to think about that, and maybe make a decision, just a few times a year, to emulate and act on that – produce a physical manifestation of an admiration for someone – it will be enough I think, to keep someone’s memory alive.

Mike MacLean worked with Casey at the Collegian.