A FRESH START
IN GREENVILLE
By Alex Havardansky
Once again it’ s a new dawn for Lions football and for Greenville athletics. Earlier this year, Greenville ISD introduced Christopher Castillo as the man who will lead the charge for the athletic department into the future.
Castillo originally hails from Palmdale, California and ever since he was 8 years old, the coach’ s number one passion has been for the sport of football. Castillo recalled whenever he was in classes as a kid, he would spend hours drawing“ stacks and stacks and stacks of plays” from his desk.
That passion led Castillo to play at the Div. II level for Cal Poly Humboldt as a defensive lineman and start exploring coaching opportunities from there.
That journey led Castillo to coach at both the high school and college levels for various programs and mentors. Some of those mentors include Jaime Hill, who is a former defensive backs coach for the San Francisco 49ers, who he coached with at Humboldt.
High School and Somerset High School before Castillo made the tough decision to leave and forge his own path at Greenville ISD.
Castillo comes into a football program that has seen its share of struggles recently. The Lions went winless last season and haven’ t had a winning record since 2019. However, the new athletic director hopes to bring in a few new philosophies to try and help turn the culture around.
His overarching theme for the team and the athletic department as a whole is M. A. G. I. C. meaning“ Make a Greater Individual Commitment.”
“ We’ re not just a football program, or a volleyball program or a basketball program,” Castillo said.“ We’ re Greenville Lions Athletics.”
Castillo hopes that a gradual approach of each individual athlete, coach and member of the athletic staff finding ways to greater apply themselves will lead to overall collective success.
Other mentors include Dave Aranda, who was a defensive coordinator at Cal Lutheran when Castillo coached under him and is the current head coach at Baylor University. Perhaps Castillo’ s longest and most impactful partnership was working under the coaching tree of Koy Detmer, a former quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1997 to 2006 whose brother is also a Heisman Trophy winner.
Detmer and Castillo were a coaching duo for a decade at both Mission
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