Danielle Cassara was named as the pitching coach on the FIU coaching staff in the Fall of 2024. She arrives in Miami with a large range of coaching and playing experience at various collegiate and professional levels.
Cassara most recently served as an assistant pitching coach at Louisburg College (N.C.) and prior to that was the pitching coach at Shippensburg University (Pa.) from 2018-24. She also had coaching stops at the Richard Bland College of William & Mary (Va.) (2017-18), Shepherd University (W. Va.) (2016-17), Wilkes University (Pa.) (2015-16) and Moravian University (Pa.) (2012-15).
Additionally, Cassara boasts over 15 years of experience as a private instructor, including training the Dominican Republic National Team (2003) and the Chinese Taipei Junior National Team (2019).
She has worked with Creating Aces (2012-18) in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland well as Triple Crown Sports (2000-03) in Fort Collins, Colorado and the Diane Lewis School of Softball (2004-09) in Long Beach, California.
A native of Long Beach, Calif., Cassara has been playing softball since the age of six. At 13, Cassara was invited to compete in Europe with a hand-selected team of All Stars. They ran clinics and played in several exhibition games in Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Madrid and Seville before participating as an official exhibit in the 1992 Expo World’s Fair in Seville, Spain.
During her collegiate career, Cassara was a four-year letter winner at New Mexico, where she cemented herself as one of the best players in the history of the New Mexico program. She made her mark in the record books, as she still ranks among the top-10 players in 16 single-season categories and 23 career categories, in both pitching and hitting.
This includes duplicate appearances in several single season categories. Cassara’s biggest accomplishment as a Lobo was throwing a perfect game in 1999; the first for the program since 1981.
Cassara was honored as Conference Player of the Week five times, Conference Pitcher of the Week five times, and was awarded First-Team All-Conference honors in 1997 and 2000. Cassara won a total of 51 games with 22 shutouts and recorded 348 strikeouts as a pitcher while batting .342 with 26 home runs and 143 RBIs at the plate.
After finishing her college career, Cassara was invited to play professionally in Forli, Italy. Forli made the Championship Tournament, where Cassara earned the honors of MVP and Best Hitter.
Other International play included a summer in Canada, where she competed against the Chinese, Canadian, Australian and United States National Teams in the Canada Cup Tournament.
After graduating from New Mexico, Cassara played in the Colorado Semi-Pro League for two years, at one point shutting out the National Professional Fastpitch (NPF) All-Stars. Cassara competed in women’s league fastpitch in the northeast from 2009-2017, defeating the Stratford Brakettes in 2017, the first time in program history for Lyons Spirit.
As prep, Cassara was a four-year varsity letterwinner, a four-time All-Conference selection, a four-time All-City selection, a three-time All-Dream Team selection, Co-MVP and the Female Athlete of the Year at R.A Millikan High School in Long Beach.
