Chris Casey talks about his six years at St. John's as if they were a smashing success, full of NCAA Tournament trips and groundbreaking victories, not a struggle to break .500 and qualify for postseason play.
But to Casey, the second-year Niagara men's basketball coach, it was an enjoyable learning experience that paved the way to his own breakthrough, from working under Norm Roberts to facing Hall of Fame coaches such as Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino.
All those memories will come flooding back Tuesday night, when his Purple Eagles meet St. John's at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, a homecoming of sorts for Casey, who spent large chunks of his childhood and young adult life living in Brooklyn and Queens.
"I really developed a lot of good relationships there," the 51-year-old coaching lifer said in a phone interview. "That'll be the biggest part of coming back, just getting to see people you haven't seen in so long."
St. John's was just one of several stops in Casey's journey. After 27 years coaching at the Division I, II and III levels, Casey achieved a dream of becoming a Division I head coach in the spring of 2013. He took the long route, working as an assistant at four different Division I programs, excelling as a Division II head coach at LIU Post following his St. John's stint, before he was hired to replace Joe Mihalich — who left for Hofstra — at Niagara.
"Passion, he's got great passion for the game, he's got great passion for the players, he's got passion for whatever school he's at," Roberts, now an assistant coach at Kansas, said in a phone interview. "He's a guy who wants to do things the right way, and he will work as hard as he possibly can to be successful."
Casey never worried about whether his time would come. Casey was always focused on the job at hand.
He committed to basketball right after college, quitting his desk job at Ethan Allen to become a graduate assistant at Central Connecticut State, and while he may have thought twice about the move from time to time in the nearly three decades he worked toward becoming a Division I head coach, his passion for the sport never waned.
"You never know what's going to happen," he said. "You can't lament things that don't go your way and you can't rest on things that do go your way. You have to keep moving forward. Sometimes your path is to get your shot early or you get your shot late or in the middle. Everybody is different."
It's that same approach now at Niagara. It's about the next game, developing his young and inexperienced roster — no seniors, 13 freshmen and sophomores — into a cohesive unit. Despite a 1-3 record, Niagara is 1-0 in the MAAC, after its surprising 61-59 win Nov. 20 over St. Peter's, a team predicted to challenge for the conference title.
Casey doesn't expect Tuesday night to be an emotional homecoming. He has more important things in mind, like getting a victory. But it won't be just another game, either.
Without St. John's, he may never have gotten his big break.
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