Rob Cashell is a 1984 graduate of Butte High School. That year, he was a member of the boys’ basketball team that captured the Class AA State title in Missoula on St. Patrick’s Day.
Rob was a Longfellow Bomber and a “Muni kid.” That means he was one of the thousands of kids who grew up playing golf at the Highland View Golf Course in the Jack Crowley days.
After graduating from Western Montana College (now Montana Western) and kind of accidentally getting into the administrative side of higher education, Rob became the first full-time director of athletics at his alma mater. He then took over as the first full-time director of athletics at Eastern Oregon, in La Grande.
In April of 2012, Rob was named the commissioner of the Cascade Collegiate Conference, and he still holds that position today. He lives in Corvallis, where he and his wife, Heather, are only a couple of hours away from their youngest daughter Elizabeth and their granddaughter, Suki. They lost their daughter Hanna in an automobile accident in April of 2016. She was only 18.
Listen in to this episode as Rob talks about his family and how they dealt with the death of Hanna. Listen in as he talks about growing up in Butte, moving from East Butte to the Longfellow neighborhood and walking to the Muni with a sack lunch every day of the summer.
Listen in as Rob talks about how he wasn’t as good of a golfer as his brother Dave, who held the course record at the Muni until just a few years ago.
Listen in as Rob talks about playing on that 1984 championship team and how he said he lived for practice, where he had to battle with the likes of Scott Paffhausen and Mickey Tuttle every day.
Listen in to hear that Rob is still a Butte guy and a Muni kid at heart.
Today’s episode of the ButteCast is presented by the Jewelry Design Center. Let Brian Toone and Co. be your jewelers for life.
Intro music by Tim Montana. For more from the Elk Park native, go to timmontana.com. For more from Bill Foley, go to ButteCast.com.