Chris Caskey came to Washington State in October of 2019. He is an assistant director of athletic communications, working directly with the WSU women’s basketball, rowing, men’s golf and women’s golf programs.
Caskey’s responsibilities include the management of the day-to-day communications and public relations efforts for the Cougar women’s basketball, women’s rowing, men’s golf and women’s golf teams, along with managing each program’s social media accounts. His work on the WSU women’s basketball social media accounts has earned a consistent top-50 engagement ranking for all NCAA Division I women’s basketball accounts in each of the last four seasons. In total, the Washington State women’s basketball social accounts have seen an 85 percent increase in followers during Caskey’s time with the Cougars.
He has spent four seasons coordinating all women’s basketball game-day media operations at WSU. That role includes supervising the game-day stat crew, all athletic communications game-day staff and oversees credentialing for all women’s basketball home games at Beasley Coliseum. He also assists in all areas of the external department for women’s basketball, helping creative services, marketing, and tickets in ideation and execution of external projects for the sport.
Caskey was an integral member of the women’s basketball staff during the historic 2022-23 season that saw the Cougars win the school’s first Pac-12 Championship by any female athletic team at Washington State, as WSU won the 2023 Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas. He generated an engagement rate of 7.1 million for Washington State women’s basketball social accounts during the 2022-23 season, which included a total reach of 3.5 million across all platforms during the Pac-12 Championship/March Madness run. Caskey was also integral in the ‘#LetsGoGirls’ social campaign that saw country music legend Shania Twain engage with Washington State women’s basketball on Twitter multiple times during and after the Pac-12 Tournament, which gained National media attention from the likes of ESPN, New York Times, The Athletic, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports, and several others.
During his time with Washington State women’s basketball, the Cougars have set numerous program records and accomplished several program firsts. Caskey has been a part of three-straight NCAA Tournaments with the Cougars from 2021-23 and was on staff when WSU ended its 30-year NCAA Tournament drought during the 2020-21 season.
In addition to his basketball communications accomplishments, Caskey was on staff when the Washington State women’s rowing team qualified for the 2021 NCAA Rowing Championships in Sarasota, Florida and traveled with the team to be their on-site communications and creative content liaison. He was the on-site communications director for the 2023 NCAA Women’s Golf Pullman Regional at Palouse Ridge Golf Course. He is also a member of the stat crew at Washington State home football games.
Caskey successfully promoted Washington State Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kamie Ethridge to be named the 2023 National Coach of the Year by The Athletic, making Ethridge the first WSU women’s basketball coach to earn a national coach of the year accolade. In 2021-22, he successfully promoted Ethridge to Pac-12 Coach of the Year, as voted on by the league’s media, making her the first coach in program history to earn the distinction.
During his time at Washington State, Caskey has successfully nominated numerous student-athletes for several athletic and academic postseason honors. He has successfully promoted WSU women’s basketball player Charlisse Leger-Walker to six All-American recognitions during her time at Washington State, which includes a College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-American Second Team selection in 2022-23. During the 2020-21 season, Caskey successfully promoted Leger-Walker to a school-record seven Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors, en route to her becoming the school’s second-ever Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. He also successfully covered Borislava Hristova’s trek to become Washington State’s all-time leading scorer in 2019-20, as she left WSU as the highest scoring basketball player for either gender in school history.
Caskey came to WSU after a three-and-a-half-year stint at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington. During his time at EWU, Caskey was the director of digital media for two-and-a-half seasons and assistant director of communications for one season.
He came to Eastern Washington in May of 2016 as the assistant director of communications. He was responsible for all media relation duties for the Eagle's women's basketball, women's soccer and volleyball teams, as well as oversight of women's golf and both tennis programs. In August of 2016, Caskey took on the interim role of director of digital media, later being promoted to the role full time in November of 2016. As director of digital media, he oversaw all social media, graphic design photo and video projects for all of EWU’s 14 sports. During his first season at EWU, he worked with future Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp, and successfully promoted him to numerous athletic accolades, including winning the 2016 FCS Athletic Director’s Association (FCS ADA) Offensive Player of the Year and was runner up for the 2016 Walter Payton Award.
Under Caskey’s guidance, Eastern Washington’s social media accounts were consistently in the top-10 of the FCS in total engagements, interactions and engagements. Caskey created the hashtags #ProtectTheRed for EWU football and #LetItFly for EWU men’s basketball. Both hashtags are still in use by the programs today.
Prior to his time at Eastern Washington, Caskey spent the 2015-16 season as the assistant athletic director of communications at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the NCAA’s northern-most institution. Caskey oversaw all media relations, statistical and social media efforts for all 10 Nanook sports, primarily working with the hockey, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball, rifle and skiing programs. During his time at Alaska, Caskey oversaw a staff consisting of one full-time employee and several student workers. He created individual team social media accounts for each sport and was tournament coordinator for the Mt. McKinley Bank North Star Women’s Basketball Invitational and the Flint Hills Resources Nanook Volleyball Classic.
Before Alaska, Caskey was an assistant communications director at the University of Arkansas during the 2014-15 season, where he oversaw media relation and social media efforts for the Razorback’s nationally ranked gymnastics and cross country programs. During his time in Fayetteville, Caskey was the media relations coordinator for the 2014 NCAA South Central Regional Cross Country Championships and was a media liaison at the 2015 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Prior to Arkansas, Caskey spent two seasons as the assistant sports information director at William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri. He oversaw all media relations efforts for women’s basketball, women’s soccer, cross country and track and field for two seasons, while spending one season each working with baseball, golf and softball.
Caskey, a native of Morehead, Kentucky, received a Master’s Degree in education, with a focus on athletic administration, from William Woods in May of 2014. Caskey graduated from Morehead State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in sport management in May of 2012.
