Cardigan Chronicle, Fall 2021, Volume 72, Issue 1

04FEB22_CC_Departments_Draft_07_CMS_Features_2018 2/4/2022 2:02 PM Page 48

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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.