Bound by more than Baseball: Live Oak’s Jesse Cassard grateful for chance to coach youngest son

by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor

Live Oak senior right fielder Cal Cassard had the thought in his head on a continual loop. 

The time that the Eagles secured the final out to win the school’s first state championship was when players and coaches flooded the field in delirium. 

A dog pile would ensue and once players peel themselves off the turf at Frasch Park in Sulphur, Cassard would find his father, head coach Jesse Cassard, and a warm embrace and the two would later hoist the Division I non-select state championship.

“That would be awesome,” Cal said. “Getting to raise up the trophy with him, that’s always been a dream. I’ve replayed that through in my head thousands of times.”

A lifetime of baseball memories has been part of the Cassard family fabric, a journey that’s provided a special time in their lives that’s now nearing an end. 

Top-seeded Live Oak (26-5) begins its quest for postseason glory next Tuesday when the Eagles host the Mandeville-Denham Springs winner in a best-of-three state regional series. 

“It’s always surreal,” Jesse said of going through the team’s Senior Day activities. “These (10) kids are seniors already and when it’s your own kid … I just remember him being 3 years old, spanking him because he wouldn’t stop bouncing around. When it does happen it’s a punch in the gut. You’re happy, but you’re also thinking, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore’. 

“There’s a saying, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened’,” Jesse said. “It was cool. Cullen (Cassard’s eldest son) was there. They’re all like my kids because I’ve had them for so long. We know each other so well. At some point, I’ve treated them all like they’re my own kid.”

The clock’s ticking on the remaining practices and games they’ll have together, elements they’ll cherish together. 

Live Oak put the finishing touches on a third straight District 5-5A championship in dramatic fashion. Two days after having a 13-game winning streak snapped in a 3-2 road loss at Dutchtown, the Eagles responded with a 4-3 victory on Louisiana Tech signee Cooper Smith’s, two-out, three-run homer in the seventh inning.

Cal, who has signed with Bossier Parish Community College, has remained a supportive teammate through his own offensive challenges this season. 

“He’s had a lot of tough luck, hit a lot of balls at guys,” Jesse said. “Getting him through that, I didn’t need to be his coach, I needed to be his dad. I’ve always treated him like every other kid. I never wanted the other kids to see favoritism and I’ve never given him anything. He’s proven he’s a good player.”

Cal Cassard’s batted .334 over his three-year career with a .495 on-base percentage that includes 54 walks. Part of his eye discipline features only 18 strikeouts in 203 official plate appearances and his versatility in the outfield, where he envisions playing at Bossier Parish, is one of the stronger parts of his game with one error in 97 total chances.

“I’ve just got to cherish every minute now,” Cal said. “We only have a limited amount of time left.”

Discovering a passion for the game

Jesse received a video from his mother that showed a 2-year-old Cal, outfitted with a backward hat and glove, in a ditch talking about wanting to dive.

“He wanted me to throw balls, and he would dive and make plays,” he said. “He watched everybody. Having an older brother play, he watched their teams.”

Cal’s earliest baseball memories took him back to T-ball when he first played as a 3-4-year-old. His father was the head coach at Zachary, a place where the youngest Cassard boy would often go and hit in the indoor batting cages.

“It clicked,” Cal said of his liking to the game.

Part of the daily afternoon routine followed by Cassard’s wife, Angie, was to load up her two sons after school and drop them off at Zachary’s Youth Park to attend their father’s practices. 

Cal was in awe of such Broncos as Taylor Guilbeau and Almann Snowden, and as a 6-year-old, would change out of his school clothes, grab his glove and join players in the outfield to shag fly balls.

“People would say, ‘He’s going to get hurt’,” Jesse recalled. “I said no. He’ll be OK.”

Both of Cassard’s sons grew up in the game he coached at Zachary, Sulphur, and Live Oak High Schools. Jesse was also involved in coaching travel ball teams, exposing his boys to supreme competition that would help in their own development. 

Trips to South Carolina, Miami, Houston, and North Carolina may be in the rearview mirror, but they served as life-long experiences between a father and his sons that will last a lifetime.

“He knows a lot of people and that helped me to get a chance to do a lot of things, go to a lot of places,” Cal said.

Cullen Cassard, the family’s oldest child, had created his own path as a determined left-handed pitcher who yielded to a reoccurring arm injury. He broke the growth plate in his arm in half on a throw home after backing up third base, forcing him to miss half of his sophomore season under his dad at Live Oak.

When he returned to action Cullen, who is three years older than Cal, suffered the same injury in another spot in his arm, resulting in surgery, losing his entire junior season followed by an ineffective final year because of the toll the injuries had taken.

“He threw strikes and was effective before,” Jesse said. “He was a hard worker with a big heart.”

Jesse had built a reputation for developing mentally tough players and winning at a high level, leading Zachary to a 261-112 record in 10 years, seven district championships, and three consecutive Class 4A state titles from 2007-09.

Two years before Cal’s arrival in high school, Cassard got a sneak peek into the future, watching his son Cal and several members of this year’s senior class win a 12-year-old Cal Ripken World Series in South Carolina. When they were in eighth grade, they rode the bus from Live Oak Middle School to the high school to train with the school’s strength and conditioning coach and practiced once the varsity was finished.

When Cal was finally a freshman, he was 5-foot-1 and 110 pounds, similarly built to current senior teammate Brayden Allen. 

“He was also undersized coming up and always had to fight to keep up,” Jesse said of his son who now stands 5-11 and 180 pounds, while Allen’s 6-2 and 185. “Cal started to grow as a sophomore.”

Injuries are part of the game

Cal’s first varsity game was a rather forgettable experience. His first plate appearance resulted in him taking a 90-mile-per-hour fastball off his shin from eventual UL-Lafayette signee Wilton Taylor of St. Thomas More. Cassard returned the batter’s box for a second time and singled off Taylor, who promptly hit him in the leg on a third trip.

“I saw that he wasn’t moving out the way,” Jesse said of Cal. “It’s not a big deal. He’s tough.”

Cal, who dealt with a strained growth plate and missed some time that season, was the team’s fourth outfielder and designed hitter. He was batting .300 with a .520 on-base percentage but was replaced in the starting lineup near the conclusion of district for a more experienced player with the potential for greater offensive contributions.

His coach never forgot such a move.

“I look back and felt I shouldn’t have done it,” Jesse said. “He understood. That was one of my regrets, that I should have left him in.”

Cal was already treating the game with great commitment. Since he became a licensed driver, he trained like never before, utilizing two different strength coaches in addition to what he was receiving at Live Oak. He drove to Baton Rouge to train in a facility without air conditioning because his love of the game had become so great.

“I started to fall in love with the game my junior year,” he said. “Once I started driving, I’d come up here (Live Oak High) any time. It began as a hobby, something fun to do.”

His passion came at a price, though, when Cal was sidelined at the start of his junior season. He tried playing through the pain until it became obvious that time away – including treatment – was what the doctor ordered. 

Cal returned and was at his best as a table setter, successfully reaching base in 32 consecutive games. He batted .500 in district on a team that won the league, and he was named honorable mention on the Class 5A All-State team.

“In his mind, he thought he had to do all of this stuff instead of just thinking I need to do enough with his talent,” Jesse said. “We had to figure out what the balance was. Then this offseason he trained harder.” 

Not getting any favors

Jesse experienced the reaction of parents when he was an assistant for five years to Glenn Cecchini at Barbe High in Lake Charles.

Both of Cecchini’s sons – Gavin and Garin – were staples of Barbe’s baseball success and both went on to become first and fourth-round Major League Baseball selections, respectively, but weren’t always above the scrutiny of some fans that came with playing for their father.

“People dogged Glenn because his kids were playing and they signed for $2.3 million,” Jesse said. “People still said they played because they were his kids. People are still going to say that no matter what.”

Jesse’s admittedly been harder coaching his own than his players in an effort to avoid any implications of favoritism with his players or nepotism among his parents. He said throughout the countless car rides (before Cal started driving) home, Jesse recalled remembered being overly critical of Cal on “two hands”. 

Throughout the games’ peaks and valleys, Jesse was cognizant of the times when his son needed his father instead of a coach.

“He’s earned everything he has,” Jesse said. “He went through a tough time this year and I couldn’t be hard on him. Things weren’t going well, and he had all of these expectations for himself. Getting him through that, that’s when I needed to be more of a dad. I was just as frustrated as him and I realized I couldn’t be like that. If you do something every single game to help our team that’s all that matters.”

Cal has embraced the experience of playing for someone as caring as his father. That includes the trips home after games appearing at the baseball facilities and having his dad throw batting practice in an effort to close any holes in his swing. 

“We talked about the game most of the time,” Cal said. “Looking back on it, it was what was good, what was bad about the game and we both had our input. I like being able to come here every day. He’s here and can help me out whenever I need it. He knows my swing, how I move. He knows what he’s telling me, so I can trust him.”

Already disappointed by his team’s loss in last year’s state quarterfinals at Sam Houston, Jesse later learned of his son’s show of leadership. When the two teams were going through the postgame handshake line, Cal overheard a derogatory comment from a teammate and quickly tried to defuse the situation.

Cal’s response? Live Oak exhausted its opportunities in a pair of 2-0 defeats, ending the Eagles’ season.

“I didn’t know something had happened,” Jesse said. “After the game, the Sam Houston coach told me, and it meant a lot. Cal told the guy to quit talking like that. He’s not afraid to put guys in check because he cares so much.”

One final postseason trip together

Before Jesse went on to play at McNeese State, he played for two years at Bossier Parish Community College. Cal will follow the same path, signing with the same school he hopes will launch a Division I career.

“I had never heard of Bossier until I visited,” Cal said. “They had a nice turf field, nice facilities, and campus. They gave me a real good offer. I wasn’t probably going to get a better offer than that.”

The start of his Cal’s junior college career will return Jesse to a familiar spot away from the field.

Jesse had never coached his son until high school and usually found a spot somewhere in the outfield and watched from afar. That will again be the case where Cassard, 470-119 in 18 years of coaching and 176-58 in seven years at Live Oak, will blend into the background while his son continues his own career.

“I never want to be around,” he said. “I’ll watch and not say anything. I sat in rightfield and just hung out. I’ll go back to doing that.”

Jesse looks forward to the upcoming fall where after approximately a month of practice, Bossier Parish coach Bobby Gilliam may provide an update on Cal’s performance.

“I want him to say, ‘Dang, that’s a coach’s kid’,” he said. “He knows what’s going to happen, he knows what I’m going to say. He knows how to fix things. He’s a leader.”

While Cal’s had a trying season at the plate, he’s combined to give his father one of the best outfields he’s coached because of everyone’s ability to run and take away potential extra-base hits in the gaps and save runs on the strength of plus arms.

“Cal takes extremely good angles on defense,” he said. “Going from center field to right field is a little different. He’s done a good job with that. His arm strength has gotten better this year.”

Live Oak has earned a No. 1 seed because of its gauntlet of a schedule that includes wins over Barbe, Catholic High of Baton Rouge, and Teurlings Catholic. A 12-9 loss in March to defending Division II non-select state champion Lutcher was the team’s last setback, a loss that ignited a season-high 13-game winning streak until an extra-inning loss at Dutchtown.

Sandwiched in between that stretch was Live Oak’s tribute to its tremendous senior class that’s produced five college signees with standout pitcher Sawyer Pruitt, a UL-Lafayette signee, figuring into the Major League Baseball draft.

Each player was honored with a list of accomplishments given to an adoring crowd. A collage of pictures was neatly transformed into a keepsake, while players presented flowers to their mothers, and family pictures were taken on the mound.

The Cassards were represented by Jesse and Angie and their two sons, while their two daughters were unable to attend.

“We have a special parent group,” Jesse said. “They’ve raised their kids the right way and have made sacrifices to be on the team.”

Jesse understands the impact the postseason can have on the lives of players, something he understands from his time at Zachary where he won three state titles and played for another. Now he wants one at Live Oak, a Class 5A runner-up Barbe in 2014, for a bunch of dedicated players and their supportive parents. 

“I want them to win it,” Jesse said. “I’ve got enough rings. It would be great to go out on top, but it’s 99% about them and about 1% me. I have a competitive spirit. I want them to win it. We’ve gone through everybody. We didn’t take the easy road or have an easy game. There’s no better feeling.”

Cal was motivated by several factors at the start of the 2025 season. This marked his final season playing for his father and close-knit group of teammates whose fire was fueled by consecutive losses in the state quarterfinals to Sam Houston.

It brought him back to a place he imagined, playing for his father in high school with the dream of winning a state championship together. 

“To be a part of history,” he said.

There’s the potential for another four weeks in that relationship between father and player, but their bond will always endure as father and son. They will repeat a routine they first began when Jesse pitched to Cal at the age of 4.

Cal will look to take additional batting practice outside the team’s normal practice, and Jesse will oblige. He will probably offer advice Jesse hopes will enhance his son’s confidence and lead to a memorable experience for father and son.

“You’re going to remember these next couple of weeks,” Jesse said. “It’s going to be the memories of a lifetime.”