Casaccia Just Couldn’t Keep On Truckin’ to Van Nuys, so He Transferred to Reseda

Despite the way it looks, senior outfielder Frank Casaccia would like everyone to know that he was just minding his mother.

Last week--five games into the baseball season--Casaccia withdrew from Van Nuys High, a school he had attended since 10th grade, and transferred to Reseda, a school about two blocks from the home his family moved into three years ago.

This week, he is playing for the Regents. And it’s perfectly legal.

But while skeptics might assume five consecutive losses by Van Nuys sent Casaccia packing, he insists differently.

“My mom said the transportation was getting too much, the gas and all that,” said Casaccia, a .300 hitter who was Van Nuys’ top returning player.

Jeanette Casaccia, Frank’s mother, felt the drive to Van Nuys--about eight miles east of their home--was excessive and unnecessary since Reseda was just down the street. She began complaining to her son about it last year when he started to drive. Casaccia continued at Van Nuys through his junior season and even joined the football team over the summer.

He started at strong safety for Coach Mark Pomerantz, who also is the Wolves’ first-year baseball coach who inherited a 4-13 team. Casaccia could have transferred at the semester break in January, but he did not.

“I would have liked to transfer at the beginning of the semester, [but] I was trying to stay and she said no,” he said.

Said Jeanette Casaccia: “The truck [that Frank drives] is getting to the point where it is ready to break down. I told him, ‘You really belong over here, why don’t you go here?’

“It was a decision we both made and he was unhappy over there and he needs to be happy.”

So on March 11, Casaccia got signatures and existing grades from all of his teachers at Van Nuys, including Pomerantz, and withdrew without an explanation to his coach.

Casaccia said he felt so badly about leaving, he could barely speak on his last day at Van Nuys.

“I didn’t want to betray them the way I did, but it really wasn’t like it was betrayal because I didn’t say, ‘Oh, forget you guys.’ I had to [transfer],” he said.

Pomerantz however, sees things differently.

“He didn’t even talk to me about it,” Pomerantz said. “If he doesn’t want to be here and help turn things around then I don’t need him.”

Said Casaccia: “I didn’t really want to talk about it [with him]. I’m not that open about problems like that.”

Reseda Coach Mike Stone welcomed Casaccia with open arms and a starting position in left field--with just a few practices under his belt.

“I didn’t ask and for all intents and purposes, I don’t even want to know what the deal was over there at Van Nuys,” Stone said.

“He’s a very nice young man, quiet, pays attention, works hard. Everything you could ask of a kid.”

In his first two games as a Regent, Casaccia went three for seven with two runs batted in and scored twice.

Casaccia will face his former teammates three times in the next six weeks and he isn’t exactly looking forward to it.

“I’m expecting to get hit all three games, every at-bat,” he said.