Interview with Holly Cassina (SPORTS INFORMATION DIRECTOR FOR BASEBALL AND WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL PROGRAMS)

By Aaron Story

Photo: Holly Cassina

Q: All right. Welcome, everyone, to the Bulldogs news network. My name is Aaron Story, and today, I’m joined by Holly Cassina. How’s it going, Holly?

I’m doing well. how are you? 

Q: Pretty good, pretty good. I guess we can start off by asking what your title is, what your job is here at Fresno State and other such questions. 

Well, I am Holly Cassina. Like you said, I am the sports information director for our baseball and women’s volleyball programs here at Fresno State. I do a lot of the media relations, and a lot of you know social media communications from the team. So it’s a little bit of everything. It’s kind of a mixed bag, but it’s a lot of fun. I enjoyed it a lot. 

Q: Cool, cool. So, how long have you been working for Fresno State? Was this your first job?

This actually isn’t my first full-time job. Well, it’s my first full-time job, but I was an intern here at Fresno State during my undergraduate studies. So I actually went to a junior college first. Then I transferred to Fresno State, and right when I transferred, I started interning here. That was about three years ago now when that happened. Then as I was an intern, I got a job at the Fresno Grizzlies. okay, so I was at the Fresno Grizzlies for about six months. I loved that job. shout out to my people over there at the track, I loved them. they were the best and then I had the opportunity here to jump on full-time. So I took that about a year ago. So I took that opportunity, and I’ve been here since.

Q: Okay, so you mentioned you’re in baseball and you work for the Grizzlies, were there some things you took away from that experience working for the Grizzlies that you use now?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I worked in marketing, but the Grizzlies being single it is it’s a pretty small team out there and, you know, staff members, so that also was a little bit of everything. I did a lot of the social media stuff, but I would help with the other communications and I think that they taught me a lot about the game itself, but also about how to promote people how people want to be promoted. what are fans interested in? What are they not so interested in? And there are a lot of takeaways from that, and I am just seeing what professional players want. And that is something that I’ve tried to carry into what our collegiate athletes would want as well.

Q: Was sports something you always wanted to be involved in, or was it something you just became interested in recently?

Honestly, I didn’t really know it was an option. when I originally wanted to be a news broadcaster. and i think sports was kind of on my mind when I started college and that’s kind of what I wanted to do and I’ve always liked sports. I just didn’t necessarily realize that it was something that I could do as a career. I had the opportunity for this internship three years ago, and I think it really opened the door for me to opportunities that I didn’t even know existed. So when I started, I just whatever you need me to do, let me do it. Whatever you need help with, let me do it if that means I’m hanging out with marketing for the day, great if that meant that I’m writing a press release, or I’m posting on social media, or I’m doing stats for a sport that I’ve never even watched before, great, throw me into the fire and I think that helps me learn so much and it’s just become something that I’m passionate about that I didn’t even know I could do. I can appreciate you later. so it’s been great.

Q: So, how long? Well, you said you were working here at Fresno State for a few years, right?

I was an intern for two years, so I worked almost exclusively for free here for two years, and then I started full-time on March 23.

Q: Okay, so what do you enjoy most about this experience so far that you’ve been on this journey so far?

What I love about my job specifically is that if you really boil it down, my job is to brag about the athletes and what they are good at, how they are good people off the field, and how they play. And I think that it is so cool that I get to promote them in that way. like they get to promote themselves, obviously, but I give them an additional outlet to, you know, I get to brag about them. I get asked about them on social media; I get to nominate them for player of the week I get to tell people like, “Hey, you should pay attention to this guy” or “You should pay attention to this volleyball player,” and I love that I get to promote them in that way and help them pursue professional careers.

Q: Okay, so why did you pick baseball and volleyball, or were there only ones given to you?

I got really lucky with baseball.

Q: baseball is your favorite?

Yeah, so baseball is my favorite sport. It always has been. And so when the opportunity came up for me to take over as the communications the sad for baseball, I was through the roof very excited about it, and then after baseball season ended, I was given volleyball and I had kind of I had like played volleyball in middle school. My best friend, growing up, was a volleyball player, and she came from a volleyball family, so I knew a little bit about the sport, but I kind of took it and ran with it; the coaching staff with the volleyball team is amazing, and they’re brand new. so we got to kind of grow together. You know, what do we want to do as a team and what do we want to promote with these girls I ended up falling in love with volleyball too. So I’m very, very lucky to have those two sports, and those two coaching staffs have really brought me in and treated me like one of their own, so I’m very, very fortunate with them.

Q: So you said you’ve had a good experience so far? Are there any difficulties you’ve had? I’m sure you’ve had some, or maybe you haven’t, I don’t know.

Well, you learn that being a 24-year-old girl in my role is very rare. and at Fresno State, we have a lot of women in the sports information director role. We have four of us and only one male that’s in a similar role to us and communications, and that is very, very rare. So it’s not necessarily a difficulty, but it is interesting because sometimes you walk into a room and people are surprised that the s-a-d for a d one baseball team is a 24-year-old girl, and sometimes you know they might not necessarily take you seriously right away but you just kind of have to own that and be very confident in what you’re doing, and you’ll get there, and people will respect you, and it’s never really been a problem. But it is just interesting to observe.

Q: Okay, have you had a specific good memory so far in your short career? A memory that you’re like, oh, wow, I made it. I’m doing it.

You know, it’s funny that you say that because I have those weirdly existential moments pretty often where I’m like, this is my job like it is. I’m in charge of Fresno State baseball communications. It’s me like I’m the one talking about the volleyball team. I’m the one writing these notes that people are going to read later, and I think every once in a while, somebody from the news will reach out and ask for or something or thank me for something, or an athlete will thank me, and I just I pause for a second, and I’m like, wow, that is really my job. I can’t think of something super specific on the spot, but every once in a while, I have those moments of like, “Oh my gosh, this is this is my job. this is real life.” This is what I’m I’m doing right now and that it’s a great feeling.

Q: Okay, that’s pretty cool to hear. So my next question is about being a part of the volleyball team and their success last season. They got to the tournament for the first time, right and about 20-something years ago, they won the Mountain West title for the first time. How was that experience being a part of that journey for those girls on that team?

Well, first of all, I love those girls like they’re my own sisters. So it was so fun. I’ve grown so close to them, and I really feel like my athletes because I’m close to their age. It really is like I have a group of 16 little sisters and 40 little brothers that I get to take care of all the time. So to watch them succeed and to help promote them on social media and to kind of push the whole why not our thing that they started, and those girls created that on their own. They thought of that, but it was on me to get the rest of, you know, the fans and the community to buy in and to help them know, like, hey, this exists. This is what this team is doing, and I want to watch them succeed and grow, take that mindset, and create a fan base. I have to help them do that. I got to help them create why not us and make that a thing, and I just love being able to help them succeed in ways that they might not have even thought of obviously they want to be successful on the court, but I get to help them find success in other ways, and that was so rewarding. It was a lot of work. It was so much work. It was a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of stress. Even just hoping you know we showed up in Vegas, and we wanted to win one anymore, and it was going to be so hard to have to travel back with those girls knowing they put in so much work and they came up short, but it just never happened. I will never forget that moment when they ended up winning, and the girls were dogpiling on the court, and I was in tears, and our sports supervisor was in tears, and our athletic director was out there and like that is something that nobody can ever take away from those girls and I was lucky enough to experience that with them and have that relationship with them and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

Q: That’s such a cool moment to experience all that. Yeah, they won in Vegas. It was awesome. Okay, so switch into your other sport, baseball. I think it’s about seven games into the season. So what is your takeaway from the season so far from your perspective or the team’s perspective?

I think this team is really starting to gel together, there’s a lot of returners but there’s also a lot of newcomers. It’s really close to 50/50, and I think that, you know, the first couple of games, you really have to figure yourself out. You can have your inner squad games in the offseason. You can have, you know, we had an alumni game, and you have your full scrimmages and everything, but until you’re really in it and you’re playing live games, you don’t fully know how you come together as a team, and I think it is still so early but I think that these guys are so gritty and so confident in themselves and not in a cocky way but in a hey, we’re going to show up to the fields every single day and we’re going to put in 100% every single day. And they’re really coming together and starting to create a game day culture and I think they’re gonna find a lot of success with that.

Q: Okay, is there a goal for yourself, like, you say you run the social media for the baseball team, like getting a certain amount of followers or maybe trending one time?

Yeah, I think that that’s something that we’ve really, our creative department helps us so much. So a lot of that video content they’re producing, and we’re kind of bouncing ideas back and forth with them. So shout out to them also because they’ve put in a lot of work to help achieve those goals as well. but really, what can I do to promote those guys in ways that fans really enjoy? So I think keeping up with what’s trending right now, what are things that other baseball schools like? What’s awake for us doing right now? What’s LSU doing right now, and how do we compete with them off the field and when it comes to, you know, the content that we’re creating and what we’re putting out and how are we keeping up with the best programs so that we are one of the best programs even though you know, I kind of think we’re a sleeping giant in a lot of ways like there’s, there’s a lot of people that may not necessarily pay attention to us, but they’re going to by the end of the season, they’re going to be paying attention to the fresno state bulldogs.

Q: I bet. So, going back to your personal career, is there any long-term goal you have? Do you have one, or are you just doing it day by day, year by year?

I have learned that so much can change so fast. three years ago, if you had told me, like, hey, you’re going to be the baseball SID, I would have laughed in your face, probably. So I think I try not to set too many long-term goals because so much can change, and those goals are going to change. Just like five years ago. I thought it was going to be a news broadcaster. So, at the time, that was my long-term goal, but I think that right now, if I had to come up with one, I really would want to stick with baseball. And just because, you know, as a little girl watching baseball my whole life with my dad, my brother, and my mom, that’s just something that we’ve always had together, and I just have such a passion for it. So if i could stick with baseball and helping these athletes promote themselves, whether it’s collegiate level or the professional level. I’d love to do that in some capacity.

Awesome. Awesome.

Q: What would be your advice for an MCJ major or somebody who wants to work in sports for Fresno State?

Just keep showing up. Keep showing it. That’s what I did. Keep showing up. When things get hard. Keep showing up. When you’re tired. keep showing up when you think that you’re putting in all this work and nothing’s coming out of it. Keep showing up, because if you don’t, somebody else well, that is something that I’ve repeated so many times if you don’t do it, somebody else well, and that’s something that I had to remind myself there are some long nights when you work in sports in this job. There are some days, you know, in the offseason where it’s nice and easy, and there are some days where you’re working 12-hour days, you’re working 14-hour days, and you really really have to have a passion for it and keep showing up because it is eventually it’s going to work out for you. But if you don’t keep showing up, it’s going to go to somebody else. Yeah. So that would be my advice.

Q: All right. so what should students are fans of the Bulldogs of baseball volleyball should look forward to for this, I guess the rest of the school year even like next year for volleyball?

Well, I think volleyball proved it. they were also a sleeping giant, you know, they were dead last in the rankings, and they were able to win a championship. Our baseball team isn’t dead last in the rankings, but I do think that they are a sleeping giant, and I think that once the season progresses, they’re really really going to figure it out on the field as they’ve already shown that they are figuring it out. but I think there’s so much room for growth even still. so just like I said, just show up for these guys that really makes a difference, and the same with our volleyball team, show up for them, and they’re gonna show out for you.