`Linc' Cadigan used passion for sports to help community

F. Lincoln "Linc" Cadigan, a former employee of the King County Assessor's Office, wasn't involved in amateur and college sports just for the watching, coaching and camaraderie.

There was plenty of that, what with games, Friday gatherings at Vito's restaurant and sports-award banquets around town.

But what had a lasting hold on Mr. Cadigan, says his family, was how athletics made a positive difference in young lives.

In the 1950s and 1960s he used his passion for sports to help the community. He helped create Capitol Hill youth teams, whose players included future civic leaders and politicians.

Those programs became the matrix for the Central Area Youth Association (CAYA), with its activities for low-income youths. In 1967, former Gov. Booth Gardner, then a businessman raising money for equipment for the leagues, formed CAYA so the activities would be centrally coordinated.

"A number of kids got their start in the old football leagues," said Mr. Cadigan's son Michael Cadigan of Normandy Park. "Booth Gardner was a coach, and so was the late former Senator Mike McManus.

"Charles Mitchell, who played for the Huskies and Denver Broncos and is president of Seattle Central Community College, got his start in those leagues. My father thought the world of Charley and was proud of what he'd done."

Mr. Cadigan died Thursday (April 27) of pneumonia after bladder-cancer surgery. He was 89.

A devout Democrat who campaigned for liberal issues and Capitol Hill causes, he also had been active in the development of Seafair, notably the hydroplane races.

"He was down in the pits all the time," said his son. "Anywhere there was sports, he was there."

Born in Spokane, Mr. Cadigan played sports in high school and at Gonzaga University. He spent the mid-1930s as a coach's assistant with the Washington Redskins.

In the 1940s he worked in Seattle for his father's New World Life Insurance, which became Farmers New World Life.

He then did delivery work for a uniform company. He met city and college coaches and players while picking up and delivering the wool sports uniforms. He invited athletes to speak to youth teams.

Mr. Cadigan, an outgoing, personable man, worked in the Assessor's Office in the 1960s and early 1970s. He retired in 1976.

By then, CAYA, offering a full slate of athletic, education and drop-in programs, was catering to a new generation of Capitol Hill youths.

"He was pretty devoted to family and just loved kids all his life," said daughter Sharon Miller of Seattle.

Other survivors, all of Seattle, include his wife of 62 years, June Cadigan; sons Jim Cadigan and Tim Cadigan; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Mass will be at 11:30 a.m. today at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 732 18th Ave. E., Seattle. The family wishes donations to go to the church (ZIP: 98112).

Carole Beers' e-mail address is cbeers@seattletimes.com