Ed Cassiere, an award-winning publicist and sportswriter, has
been hired as Xavier University's sports information director, athletics
director Dennis Cousin announced today.
"Ed has considerable talent and experience plus a great passion for his
profession, and we're excited to have him at Xavier," Cousin said. "He will be a
tremendous addition for our university and play a key part in the growth of
Xavier athletics."
Cassiere comes to Xavier after 13 years (1987-2000) as the sports information
director at the University of New Orleans. During a 10-year period at UNO,
Cassiere publicized Privateer men's basketball teams which appeared in the NCAA
Tournament or NIT eight times. He was host SID for NCAA Final Fours in men's
basketball (1993) and women's basketball (1991). Cassiere publicized the
rags-to-riches story of men's basketball center Ervin Johnson -- a non-recruited
walk-on who in 1993 became UNO's only first-round NBA draft choice -- and
Javonne Brooks, who in 1992 set an NCAA record of 2,932 career kills and 13
years later was chosen the Sun Belt Conference's all-time best women's
volleyball player.
The past five years he has been a major contributor of news content to CoSIDA.com.
"I'm excited to be part of the Xavier family," Cassiere said. "I look forward to
telling the continuing story of Xavier athletics and promoting the university,
its coaches and student-athletes."
Cassiere has won more than 50 awards for sports publicity and sportswriting,
including "Best in the Nation" in the College Sports Information Directors of
America writing contest. In 1979 he received the U.S. Basketball Writers
Association's first sportswriting scholarship.
After UNO he spent six years as a freelance sportswriter and publicist. He
covered area pro and college events for SportsTicker, directed media relations
for Louisiana High School Athletic Association state championships in swimming
and volleyball and provided occasional coverage of professional, college and
high school games for approximately two dozen newspapers nationwide.
Cassiere was president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association from 1994-96.
He was assistant sports information director at the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette in 1986-87 and a sportswriter at the Shreveport (La.) Journal in his
hometown from 1981-86. He earned his first bylines as a 10th-grader, covering
sports for The (Shreveport) Times in the mid-1970s.
Cassiere received a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of
Missouri in 1981. He and his wife, the former Sharon Berken of Jennings, La.,
have two daughters, Katrina and Amy.