04FEB22_CC_Departments_Draft_07_CMS_Features_2018 2/4/2022 2:02 PM Page 48
Draft 7 (04FEB22)
from marrion field this page: Coach Castillo ’06 warming up with the basketball team on the first day of practice for winter sports; facing page: Coach McCusker ’10 working with hockey players in Turner Arena in November
other things, assists local students who want to apply to boarding schools. He tested boarding life as a Cardigan Summer Session student and then enrolled as an eighth grader in the fall of 2004. “My free spirit grew at Cardigan,” he says. “I thrived in the structure that I did not have back home.” He played football that fall but anxiously awaited the beginning of basketball season. Cardigan’s basketball coach was Nick Creach, a man Coach Castillo credits with changing the direction of his life. “He taught me so much,” Mr. Castillo explains. “But there is one moment that stands out. Coach took me out of a game,
Alumni Coach the Next Generation of Cougars
and I gave him some attitude, so he told me to head to the locker room and change back into a coat and tie. To make it worse, it was Family Weekend, and I had just embarrassed myself in front of my mom. But I did what he said—I put my tie back on and cheered my teammates from
Jonathan Castillo ’06 heads the BasketBall Program New Head Basketball Coach Jonathan
changed my life.” Coach Castillo went on to be a student
Castillo ’06 grew up in New York City. When
leader as a ninth grader and received the
asked why he enrolled as a student at
Skibsky Award—given to the student who
Cardigan, his answer is different than most.
demonstrates the most progress during
“I was held up at gunpoint.”
his time at Cardigan—at Commencement.
A seventh grader at the time, young
He then attended and played basketball
Jonathan Castillo knew then and there
at Timber Creek High School in Orlando,
that he needed to find a way to pursue
FL, where his family had relocated.
school away from the dangers of city
48
the bench. That was the moment that
After playing college basketball at Sage
streets. He reached out and found help at
College in New York and completing his
the Boys’ Club of New York that, among
Bachelor of Science degree in education
From mArrion FieLD
Cardigan Mountain School Winter 2022 Cardigan Chronicle magazine.
