Listen to Cassandra Baier: Stop Me If You've Heard This One exclusively on MGoBlue.com

Stop me if you've heard this one. The youngest of three daughters works on the family fruit farm in rural Pennsylvania and isn't allowed to play sports until age 10, yet grows up to become one of the most promising young female strength and conditioning coaches in the country.

How about this In order to make her dream a reality, she volunteers with the strength and conditioning staff at West Virginia for a full year, working two jobs to make ends meet and regularly leaving her night gig as a bartender at 2 a.m. and waking up at 4 a.m. to be in the weight room for morning lift.

Have you heard this part Just when she is offered a paid position as a graduate assistant, the entire strength and conditioning staff moves to another program in another state, leaving her with a choice. Take her chances following her mentors to Michigan and face a distinct possibility of finding two more jobs to support herself or stay put and make the best of things.

Have you heard this one before I didn't think so.

Assistant Strength Coach Cassandra Baier's story is worth hearing. She grew up in rural Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a town of around 30,000 bordered by the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The youngest of three girls, Cassandra and three generations of her family worked on Mountain Spring Farm, run by her grandfather. The family harvested an endless supply of apples, raspberries, cherries, peaches, currants and more, leaving Cassandra little time for anything but school and work.

Cassandra was always interested in sports and finally persuaded her mother to convince her father to let her try gymnastics at age 10. Cassandra made sure to keep up with her chores on the farm and enjoyed competing in gymnastics until 10th grade when she made a switch to competitive cheerleading.

"I picked up gymnastics pretty quickly, but I was way behind everyone else," says Cassandra. "I switched to competitive cheerleading because I wanted to compete. I did that for three years, then went to Slippery Rock University and made their cheerleading team." Slippery Rock's cheerleading squad was one of the best in the nation and Cassandra practiced and competed hard while majoring in exercise science. In her final semester before graduation, Cassandra decided to pursue an internship in collegiate strength and conditioning to complete her degree.

The deadline had passed for her first choice, Penn State, leaving her few obvious options. A friend was attending Fairmont State in Fairmont, West Virginia, and recommended that Cassandra check out their strength and conditioning program at WVU, which was close by and had a good reputation. Cassandra went online, checked out the strength and conditioning site and made her decision. Sight unseen, she chose West Virginia and moved into a tiny apartment 30 miles from campus, moving in with a roommate she had never met.

For the entire semester Cassandra woke at 4 a.m. to drive a half-hour into Morgantown to be on time for morning lift.

"I worked the entire semester, finished my internship and graduated," says Cassandra. "I wanted to stay in the field and I loved working with Mike Barwis and the guys, but they didn't have any positions they could offer, so I decided to stay and volunteer for free."

Staying involved additional sacrifices and a whole new set of complications. The first issue was money.

"My parents helped me out my last semester of school but, I didn't want them to help me out any more," says Cassandra. "I got two jobs to support myself and volunteered for the next year."

Cassandra worked as a waitress and then a bartender at The Firkin and Fox while also picking up hours at a local Gap, earning enough to pay for food, gas, rent and a handful of luxuries.

"I would do morning lifts with the football team and be able to make it for half of the second lift before either going to the Gap or heading to the restaurant," says Cassandra. "Once I started bartending, that's when it got rough. I wouldn't get home until after 2 a.m. and I'd have to be up by 4 a.m. I really liked what I was doing at West Virginia so I did what I had to do."

Not only did Cassandra have to deal with the adversity of keeping her head above water financially, but she had to struggle with some of the issues inherent to a woman working in a predominantly male field. There are fewer arenas more drenched in testosterone than a collegiate weight room.

During her first week as an intern at West Virginia, Cassandra experienced some of the challenges she might face in her chosen line of work. A few athletes made comments, wouldn't listen or didn't take her seriously, leading to increasing frustration. One day, while working with Barwis at one of the stations doing balance exercises with group of athletes, he barked a few phrases that were closer to the "R" end of the spectrum than "PG". The players' eyes widened, not because of Barwis' words but because they had been uttered next to the young female intern. Neither Barwis nor Cassandra batted an eyelash and the drills continued.

"Mike took me aside later, put his arm around me and told me he would never censor anything when I was around," says Cassandra. "As soon as he started to treat me differently in the weight room, the athletes would lose respect for me and wouldn't see me as just another person in the gym. He knew I never want to be treated any different. That's when I knew I could work for this guy."

Cassandra also had a very powerful ally and role model in the weight room, Barwis' own wife, Autumn. Autumn Barwis worked as the associate strength and conditioning coach at West Virginia and shared many of the same traits as young Cassandra.

"Autumn and I were the only two females in the strength and conditioning program," says Cassandra. "Autumn is quiet, but she's an amazing coach and I've always looked up to her. When I was at West Virginia it was hard to have the guys respect you, especially as an intern. I would look at the way they treated Autumn with respect and I knew I wanted to be in that position. It's a long process. You can't come in and just start yelling. You need to build a relationship first."

Through the late nights, early mornings and constant hard work in the weight room, Cassandra was earning the respect of her charges and her peers. Barwis offered her a graduate assistant position for the next school year, which promised compensation and additional schooling, and Cassandra was ecstatic. But things couldn't be that easy, could they Shortly after the offer, Barwis and his staff made the decision to move en masse to Ann Arbor with head coach Rich Rodriguez, leaving Cassandra with another decision. She could stay at West Virginia and take her chances with the graduate assistant position or follow Barwis and the rest of her mentors to Ann Arbor and try her luck with the Wolverines.

"I figured I might as well do there what I was doing here," says Cassandra, "so I told Mike I would move to Michigan."

For the next six months, Cassandra worked and saved money for her move, arriving in Ann Arbor in April of 2008 with a modest bank account and no guarantees. She slept on a couch in the apartment of three former West Virginia strength and conditioning assistants, volunteering as much as she could as Barwis worked to get her a paid position.

Finally, in June, all of her persistence paid off in the form of an offer as assistant strength coach with the Wolverines. At the end of the month, her first paycheck arrived, the first monetary compensation for her strength and conditioning work in a year and a half. "I called my mom right away," says Cassandra.

Michigan has been an interesting transition for Cassandra, who had to start again from scratch in earning her athletes' respect. Fortunately for her, she is dealing with Michigan Men.

"I remember my first day at Michigan," says Cassandra. "We were doing neck exercises. Usually everyone sits on a stool or on a balance ball, but I stand or kneel on the ground to get leverage. Stevie Brown saw me kneeling and went over and got me a balance ball. When I saw him get a second ball I wondered what this kid was doing, but I see he was just being a gentleman. These guys are so respectful, calling me ma'am all the time and asking if they can get things for me. It made my transition a little easier."

Being the only full-time woman on staff also has its benefits because it provides the athletes with a different style of teaching. "Some guys listen to me a lot more and respond more than they would to some of our other coaches," says Cassandra. "Maybe it's because they have a strong bond with their mothers or strong female influences in their lives. I'm not as good of a motivator as Mike, but our styles complement each other."

Cassandra has also had the opportunity to work with female athletes when she trained the softball team this season as they made a run at the Women's College World Series.

"It was an amazing experience," says Cassandra. "I love working with the football players but after working with 130 guys all day, it's a nice break to work with a small group of girls. It was a lot of fun and I feel like it was easier for me to motivate them. I've loved every minute of it and I never want to give this group up. They worked so hard all year and I had so much fun in Oklahoma City."

All of Cassandra's hard work and dedication to her craft has not gone unnoticed.

"I don't give a damn if you're green, orange, blue, I could care less," says Barwis, "if you're the best at what you do, then you'll be in the room. If you can improve Michigan football and our players, you're going to be in the room. Coach Rodriguez is a guy who wants the best for his kids and his program."

"Cassandra carries the flag for trying to make things better for women in an environment dominated by men," Barwis continues. "My wife paved the way for Cassandra and she'll pave the way for other women. She does a tremendous job of representing herself and carries a little heavier burden than most. With opportunity, comes great expectation. Cassandra has the opportunity to excel in a field and create openings for people like her. So, the question is, what do you do with that opportunity"

Cassandra's tale is only a few chapters old, but if the end is anything like the beginning, it'll make one heck of a story.