By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Unrecruited out of high school, during his freshman year at Lehigh University, Dane Kasschau walked onto the lacrosse team. Heading into his sophomore year, the coach told him the team might not have a spot for him. Senior year, they named him captain.
Such was the competitive drive and unique ability to bring people together of the late Kasschau, who passed away on January 25 after a nine-month battle with colorectal cancer. Leaving behind a wife and two kids, with a third on the way, he was 39 years old.
In his memory, Kasschau’s family is organizing various events known as “Dane’s Games” to raise money for charitable causes. The first of these events will be a 5K run, taking place on May 14 at Powissett Farm.
While creating competitive events might not come naturally to the Kasschau family, it was Dane’s specialty. The name “Dane’s Games” come from an inside joke among Kasschau’s friends and family members about how he turned everything into a fun game or competition. Aside from running, playing golf, pickleball, and hosting office trivia, Dane turned eating pretzels at lunch into a contest of who could lick the salt off the fastest. Drinking outside became about who could pick the perfect ice cube that would last the longest without melting in the sun. Cooling off in the pool became about doing the most underwater summersaults or swimming the furthest underwater. And every walk around the yard with his daughter Austin inevitably ended in a race.
With that advanced level of spontaneous game creation, unsurprisingly, he was the favorite uncle of all his nieces and nephews.
While his wife, Lissy King Kasschau, emphasized how he lived life to the fullest every day, Dane’s health issues could limit him. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and colitis at age 21, Kasschau’s siblings, Jared, Paige and Brant, noted that Dane had to leave a medical sales job because his disease complications made it tough to be out in the field. After obtaining a master’s degree and working in taxes, because he was such a people person, Kasschau struggled solitarily crunching numbers — but eventually was able to find a balance with a sales job he could do from more of an office setting. But Crohn’s and colitis never stopped being a problem. Kasschau was hospitalized because of Crohn’s and colitis issues in the past, would fluctuate in weight because of flare ups, and Lissy King Kasschau even noted that, at times, because of bathroom issues, just walking to his office from home could be difficult.
While uncomfortable to talk about, Lissy King Kasschau explained people need to know about the disease and what people with digestive issues go through, in order to prevent people from going through what her family has.
“Dane’s cancer that killed him was caused by chronic inflammation from Crohn’s disease,” she explained. “I’m hoping to normalize talking about Crohn’s and colitis so people can get support for their disease and prevent it from turning into cancer. These are diseases that don’t get a lot of attention, because digestive issues can be personal and somewhat embarrassing to talk openly about.”
Dane’s sister, Paige, noted that he battled that disease for nearly half his life, and that it was the health issue he most struggled with. As a result, Dane ran the marathon for Beth Israel Hospital, where his GI doctor was based out of.
While many events are yet to come, the Kasschau family has been raising money already without them. So far, The Dane Austin Kasschau Fund has raised over $140,000 for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, almost exclusively from individuals and families rather than large corporate donors.
“It’s amazing how many people have donated and how loved he was,” Lissy King Kasschau explained. “He was such a positive person, and people were the most important thing to Dane. His relationships with people were his number one priority, and I think that really shows with how many people came out to support him in the end, and to support this fund.”
While the donation numbers might be surprising (Jared Kasschau noted they started at a much smaller goal, but kept moving it forward, since Dane would never have settled), for those who knew him best, the number of people who were impacted by Dane’s life wasn’t. At a celebration of life in his hometown of Long Island, Paige found that of the over 200 people there, nearly all felt that Dane made them feel special.
“Without fail, every single person I walked up to would mention Dane’s smile, and how he had this unique ability to make anyone feel special,” she explained. “He had this unbelievable memory, so with his memory and his charisma and personality, he was really able to connect with people. Not only did he have his beautiful smile, but you always left the conversation with him mirroring it with a beautiful smile of your own. It wasn’t just something our family noticed; it was something everyone here in the community on Long Island mentioned.”
While the details haven’t been worked out completely, Dane’s famed smile will be incorporated into the tee-shirt design for the 5k and kid’s one-mile fun-run in May.
Unfortunately, here in Dover, residents didn’t get to experience Dane as much as those in Boston and New York did. While he’d planned to raise his children here, where Lissy King grew up, Dane only lived in Dover for about a year.
But if you’d caught him yelling at the referees at Dover-Sherborn High School on Friday nights, you’d have sworn he was either a player’s parent or an extremely proud alumnus.
“He will be a part of this community through his children, and he himself would have added so much with his energy and dedication to local athletics and recreation,” Lissy King Kasschau explained. “He had the sweetest and most fiery competitive spirit, and excitement for all things recreational. In the short time he lived in town, he attended most of the Dover/Sherborn soccer and football games under the lights. He would laugh at himself yelling from the sidelines when he didn’t even have a child competing in the game.”
But Kasschau wasn’t exclusively into athletics. While the idea of “Dane’s Games” are to honor his memory and to bring people together outside, whether they knew Dane or not, through athletic activities, Dane was also an artist who left behind rocks he painted, birthday cards he handmade as coloring activities for his nieces and nephews, as well as drawings and paintings.
Among the art pieces he couldn’t leave behind, though, are the Etch-a-Sketch creations he would make for his daughter, Austin. His sister, Paige, said they were quite good, but that his abilities with the kids’ toys wasn’t especially surprising, as, “Dane was just one of those types of people where anything he set his mind to, he excelled at. It was just something he loved to do, and because of that, he was amazing at it.”
But when pressed on if there was anything they really wanted to get across in this article, the Kasschau family didn’t focus on Dane or their charitable fund. Instead, Jared Kasschau immediately stated that he’d encourage people to be proactive and get screened for colorectal cancer at 45 or younger if they’re at risk, while Lissy declared that a tangible goal of ”Dane’s Games” is “to talk about early colonoscopies and screening, so no other family has to go through what we have gone through.”
While Dane Kasschau’s memory will live on through the charities his family creates, only those who knew him will really be able to explain what he meant to people. So, when asked what Dane meant to her, Lissy King Kasschau explained: “Dane was the most committed and loving father and husband, with a heart that leaves me forever grateful. As I welcome our baby boy in the next week, and comfort our two older babies, I will always remind them how incredible their father was — someone who cherished relationships and made friendships feel like family — a competitive soul who genuinely saw the fun and beauty in life and, with a smile that could knock me over, he was able to share that joy with everyone around him.”
