After 32 seasons of leading the Vikings baseball program as head coach, Casey Crook announced his retirement from the team after the conclusion of the 2025 season.
“I’ve slowed down, I don’t put in the same energy and passion. There’s a lot that goes into it other than making a line up and putting it on the board on game day,” Crook said.
Crook comes from an athletic family where he and his siblings grew up playing many sports including baseball and as he entered high school he found a bigger connection to the sport.
Continuing his career in baseball after high school, Crook attended Briar Cliff College in Iowa where he played shortstop for four seasons and helped the team to two NAIA District 15 Championships and was inducted into the athletic hall of fame in 2005.
After his college career concluded, he knew some coaches at Long Beach State who helped him get a small role as a coach where the team made an appearance in the College World Series in 1991.
“It definitely sparked the fire and I thought I wanna do this and figure out a way to make a living as a career,” Crook said
Crook coached one more season with Long Beach State and then found himself at LBCC with an assistant coach position in 1993, and then took the role as head coach in 1994.
Since 1994, Crook has led the program to four conference championships with seven playoff appearances and was named SCC Coach of the Year for the 1996 season.
In 2006, Crook was able to lead the Vikings to the greatest season in LBCC history. The team won a school record of 41 games and concluded the year with a 41-10 record overall.
That same year, Crook was named California Community College Coach of the Year for his outstanding season.
Crook not only coaches the baseball team but he is also a professor on campus and teaches a weight training class, which he will continue to do for the next few years following his retirement from coaching.
These past couple of seasons, Crook had some help leading the team with assistant coach Josh Frye and Ken Furuya the strength and conditioning coach.
Furuya has worked alongside Crook for the past three years and was his former student in his weight training class, he volunteered his time to the team and now fully takes on the role.
“I think students would be shocked to see his intensity in the dugout because on campus he’s just like any other professor, very warm and friendly,” Furuya said
Assistant and pitching coach Josh Frye also works alongside Crook and has been for the last two full seasons. Frye met Crook during his recruiting process back in 2010 and although he didn’t end up playing for LBCC, Frye kept in touch.
“Because of his mentorship I’ve been able to feel a lot more confident with what I do, I feel like I know what I want to do and I feel like if I can be half the man that he is out there on the field then I would have a lot of success in my career. It’s been an absolute pleasure and I can’t thank him enough for everything just in this short amount of time learning from him, the knowledge he’s been able to give me,” Frye said.
Furuya and Frye both plan on continuing to grow the program alongside new interim head coach Philip Visico.