Shannon Casey and her daughter, Meredith are leaving West Forsyth together on Friday

Shannon Casey got to read her daughter Meredith's name off the list of graduates of West Forsyth High School early Friday morning, the last official act for Casey in her long career at the school.

She is retiring after 30 years as a health and physical education teacher in a career that also included stints as a coach and assistant athletics director at her alma mater.

It was also the last official act for Meredith Casey as a student at West Forsyth when she walked across the stage to accept her diploma after hearing her mother call her name. Meredith is heading to Caldwell Community College in Hudson to continue her softball career.

Softball helped forge their bond as mother and daughter.

West Forsyth has solidified it.

Shannon Casey – Shannon Brooks when she was a student – graduated from West Forsyth in 1992 after a standout career in softball, volleyball and basketball. She went on to play softball at UNC Greensboro. As a 14-year-old freshman stepping on the campus for the first time, she never imagined she would get the chance to return to her alma mater once she graduated from college in 2006, let alone spend her teaching career there.

"When I went to college, all I thought about was playing softball. I didn't know what I wanted to do. It was never on the radar to come back here to teach," Casey said. "I never would have dreamed that this is where my life would be. It has really come full circle for me here and I can't imagine now any other place I'd want to be."

Meredith Casey grew up tagging along with her mom to just about every athletic event at West Forsyth before she showed up as a freshman for the 2022 school year.

"I already knew my way around here pretty good," Meredith said. "I had people asking me how to get to certain places. I was really excited to finally be a student here. It was something I always thought about because I was here so much with my mom anyway."

Softball in the genes

Shannon Casey played softball at West Forsyth when the sport was still slow-pitch. The softball field she played on used to be located on what is now the bus lot.

Meredith Casey has played all four years on the new field that's wedged between the Titans' baseball field and Southwest Elementary School.

Meredith played junior varsity as a freshman, was double-rostered as a sophomore, and has been on the varsity team the last two seasons as the team's No. 2 starting pitcher behind Morgan Maxwell. Meredith went 12-1 with a 0.76 ERA last season in 14 games as a starter, helping the Titans to a 26-3 record and a trip to the fourth round of the 4-A state tournament.

Her favorite pitch is her screwball.

Much like her mother's professional career at West Forsyth, Meredith was more or less the Titans' Swiss army knife this season.

In addition to pitching, where she had a record of 8-0 with an ERA of 1.74 in 11 starts, Meredith also played six other positions – first base, second base, left field, right field, center field and shortstop. Her first game at shortstop came in the opening round of the conference tournament.

"I had to learn to play a lot of different positions, but I wanted to do whatever Coach (Kevin) Baity needed me to do to help the team win," Meredith said. "I have mostly been a pitcher through high school ball and travel ball. It was really just a matter of getting over the nerves and gaining confidence in myself. Shortstop was my favorite to play. I had played some at second base during travel ball before, so that was helpful."

She hadn't really had any opportunities to bat until this season and finished with a .243 batting average with 17 hits, 14 RBIs and eight runs scored. One of those RBIs came in the bottom of the 11th inning against East Forsyth in the Central Piedmont 8A/7A Conference tournament championship game, when her single tied the game and helped fuel the Titans to a 3-2 win.

Dedicated to the Titans

When she came back to West Forsyth as a teacher in 1996, Shannon Casey also served as an assistant coach in softball, volleyball, and basketball.

Shannon Casey became an assistant athletics director at the start of the 2003-04 school year, and relinquished her role as an assistant softball coach after the 2004 season when the Titans advanced to the 4-A state finals. She focused a lot of her time as an assistant AD performing eligibility checks for all of West Forsyth's athletes and became so adept with it that other schools would call on her for advice.

She decided to step down as an assistant AD after the 2023-24 school year so she could focus on being Meredith's mom for her final two years of softball. She said he intention was to retire from being an AD and a teacher.

"The year before I decided to step down, I was sitting at home at two in the morning doing eligibility during the summer and I just had a moment. Something told me it was time for me to be done with this and that I needed to be fully present as a mom for her the next two years," Shannon Casey said.

"I didn't need to worry if someone's activity bus didn't crank, or if there was enough toilet paper in the bathroom, or if someone was mad at the ticket taker," she said. "I didn't want to get pulled away from her because of my job. And I know that's the greatest decision I've made in my career."

‘Not many people can say their mom is their catcher'

Meredith Casey started playing T-ball at the age of 4. She was 7 and playing in a coach-pitch softball league when Shannon noticed something. As players were rotated every inning, Meredith, who was in right field, apparently was focused on the action.

"Most of the kids were out there picking flowers out of the grass. I saw her start doing the pitching motion. She didn't have a ball, but she was doing the motion. And I think she probably was mimicking what she saw when she came to see West Forsyth games," Shannon said.

"I nudged my husband, David, and told him to watch her. She had no instruction at that point on how to pitch. It was such a natural motion. She hadn't played fast pitch at that point, but she had seen it. I told my husband that there was something there."

Meredith didn't remember that specific moment. But she does remember going out on the football field at West Forsyth with her mom catching and practicing pitching all the time. She remembers all the bullpen sessions with her mom on the softball field at West Forsyth. And she remembers all the sessions with her pitching coach, Jimmy Warden, at "The Chicken House" in Yadkin County, a custom-made workout space for softball players that used to be – you guessed it – an old chicken barn.

Shannon Casey would normally sit on a large bucket to catch Meredith's pitches.

"I knew she would always be there to support me and coach me, even when I didn't want to be coached," Meredith said with a laugh. "Even now, when I struggle with my pitches during games, I can hear her say ‘stay tall' and ‘don't lean'. She's constantly letting me know how to adjust and be better as a pitcher or anywhere I am on the field."

Shannon Casey wouldn't have it any other way.

"As soon as she started to show interest in it, I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to help develop that," Shannon Casey said. "Not too many people can say that their mom is their catcher."

Lots of last times

West Forsyth's season ended last Monday with a 3-2 loss to Charlotte Providence in the 8-A West Regional championship series. Meredith Casey said her mind almost immediately shifted to her teammate for the last seven years, Taylor Alderman, who played first base this season but would always catch when Casey was in the circle.

"It was hard to grasp that that was the last game we would play together and that she would never get to catch me again," Meredith said. "It was just heartbreaking to know that it was all over."

Shannon Casey said that she started to get more emotional about her retirement on Monday after Meredith's last game.

"I told my husband that it wasn't just about a yellow ball," Shannon Casey said. "Everything just hit me at once. I've just been trying to stay tough and put it out of my mind. I've spent half of my life at West Forsyth. And we've had a lot of life changes recently.

"My son (Austin, who graduated from West Forsyth in 2021) got married last month. Meredith is graduating and moving on. And I'm retiring. And it's all starting to hit me now," she said. "I've thought a lot about doing things for the last time this week. They are happy last things, but the happy things also make me sad. That got a lot harder as Friday approached."

She was confident that her emotions wouldn't crack on Friday once she read off her daughter's name, the same thing she did for her son five years ago.

"I've had a job and needed to get it done," she said. "That's usually how I push through everything. I could have retired last year, but I wanted to read her name. I wanted to see that through."

She plans to take some time to separate herself from West Forsyth for at least six months, but also said she would return to drive activity buses for field trips, not just at West Forsyth, but for all the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools during field trips and other events.

"I promised my husband that I wouldn't do that at night, just during the day time," she said. "He has gotten used to having me around more since I gave up my AD duties."

Meredith is ready to join the softball team at Caldwell Community College, which finished third in the Division III Junior College World Series.

Her glove, which needed some repair before the first playoff game, now has a green lace on it among the brown leather.

"Coach Love, one of the assistant baseball coaches, fixes gloves," Shannon Casey said. "And he used a green lace to fix Meredith's. And it just makes me so happy that she will always have some green on her glove."

After playing for two years, Meredith plans to transfer to Appalachian State and eventually go to PT school and become a physical therapist or an occupational therapist.

"I was a student trainer for my first three years here and I really enjoyed that," Meredith Casey said. "I didn't do it this year because I really just wanted to focus on my senior year. I've never been part of a student section during a football game or a basketball game and I wanted to experience that. I'm glad I got the chance to do that this year."

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