After rebuilding the Cascade football team to a state power over the past two seasons, Joe Cronin resigned as the Bruins head coach last week, a little more than a week after his first child was born 11 weeks premature.
Cronin’s daughter, Kylie Cronin, was born on June 16, 80 days before her due date of Sept. 5. Kylie has been at the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Washington since she was born, putting strain on the Cronin family. Cronin said Kylie is expected to be there until possibly late August.
“I knew with this situation it was going to be tough to be all in,” Cronin said Monday night after a long meeting with his former players. “We ask all of our kids to be all in and I couldn’t make that commitment.”
Everett School District athletic director Robert Polk said that Cascade assistant coach Eric Dinwiddie will serve as the interim head coach in Cronin’s absence for the 2014 season and that a search for a permanent head coach will begin in the fall.
In his first game as Cascade head coach, Cronin led the Bruins to a 20-12 win over Shorewood to break a 23-game losing streak. Cascade finished 5-5 in 2012 and then went 9-2 last season, beating Auburn-Riverside in a quad-district playoff game to earn its first state berth since 2007. Cronin, who was named The Herald’s Coach of the Year in 2013, finishes with a record of 14-7 in his two seasons at the helm.
“Cascade High School and the Everett School District appreciate Joe’s leadership over the last two years,” Polk said. “The culture of the Cascade football program and Cascade High School were significantly positively impacted by Joe and the athletes he coached.”
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