Chris Caskey came to Vanderbilt in August 2023. He is an associate director of athletic communications, working directly with the Commodore women’s basketball and men’s golf programs.
He comes to Nashville after spending four seasons at Washington State, where he was an assistant director of athletic communications working directly with the Cougar women’s basketball, women’s golf, men’s golf, and women’s rowing teams. He coordinated all women’s basketball game-day media operations at WSU, including supervising the game-day stat crew, all athletic communications game-day staff, and credentialing for all women’s basketball home games at Beasley Coliseum. He also assisted in all areas of the external department for women’s basketball, assisting with creative services, marketing, and tickets in the ideation and execution of external projects for the sport. His work on the WSU women’s basketball social media accounts earned a consistent top-50 engagement ranking for all NCAA Division I women’s basketball accounts. The Washington State women’s basketball social accounts saw an 85 percent increase in followers during his time with the Cougars.
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 was a part of three-straight NCAA Tournaments with the Cougars from 2021-23 and he 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. He was the on-site communications director for the 2023 NCAA Women’s Golf Pullman Regional at Palouse Ridge Golf Course. He was 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 as 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 the 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.
Caskey has successfully nominated numerous WSU student-athletes for several athletic and academic postseason honors. He successfully promoted WSU women’s basketball player Charlisse Leger-Walker to six All-American recognitions during her time at Washington State. 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, he 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 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, women’s golf and both tennis programs. In August 2016, Caskey took on the interim role of director of digital media, later being promoted to the role full-time in November 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 LVII 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.
Before 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 northernmost 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. At Alaska, he 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.
Caskey was an assistant communications director at the University of Arkansas during the 2014-15 season, where he oversaw media relations and social media efforts for the Razorback’s nationally-ranked gymnastics and cross country programs. During his time in Fayetteville, he 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.
Before 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 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 2012. He resides in Nashville with his wife, Jessica, and their two dogs Loki and Maizie.