[eDebate] Thanks and a fond farewell to Casey Kelly

[Josh Hoe]

I had the honor of coaching against Casey often and working with him
at the 2004 NDT.  Casey is a great guy, a tireless worker, and a great
Mean Green Eagle!  Good luck with grad school buddy!

Josh

On 4/13/05, Brian Lain <blain at unt.edu> wrote:
> Dear community,
> 
> I wrote a draft of this letter that was sad and contemplative.  Then I thought better of it when considering what a great friend I have in Casey and how thankful I have been for his presence at UNT.
> 
> We at North Texas wish to express our heartfelt thanks and bid a fond farewell to Casey Kelly who has served as our Program Assistant for the last two years at the University of North Texas.  Known by many names, Cake, C-dog, jazzercise, and the godfather are some of them (this is his damn place, he sleeps 20 feet away), he began an excellent college debate career at Gonzaga University where he was a first-round bid to the NDT.  He went on to do his Masters in Communication Studies at Wake Forest University, where he actually completed his MA on time!  He has worked at numerous summer debate camps and institutes including Gonzaga and Stanford.
> 
> Casey is simply one of the hardest working coaches I have ever known.  He has selflessly given his time to North Texas students and student debaters, has been an advocate for debate on campus and in the classroom, and been an invaluable source of strategy, insight, and advice to our team in the last two years.
> 
> As most of you know Casey has kept himself busy preparing for graduate work, possibly at Minnesota.  He has an article under review at the Southern Journal of Communication and continues to do research in Presidential Rhetoric.  Although Casey's football aspirations are probably over (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/players/1033/ http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb2003/playerDetail.jsp?yr=2003&org=473&player=16), he still has his radio career to fall back on if grad school doesn't work out (http://www.x58radio.com/Bios/Casey_Kelly.htm).  And he is more than a blip on the country music scene as he is widely hailed as "the best songwriter in Nashville"
> (http://caseykelly.net/).  But I'm not sure his film directing career will ever take off (http://www.mcom.mcneese.edu/news/news99-00/casey.html).
> 
> But seriously, it is very likely that this year marks Casey's last as an active coach in debate.  He'll still be around and he will forever be part of the family, but it's going to be different.  Casey thanks, we'll miss you.
> 
> Best to all,
> -Brian
> 
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