Friday, November 14, 2008
One-time phenom Castro still slinging
Beamer hiring revisited
Doug Doughty
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In the summer of 2006, former William Fleming High School coach and quarterback guru John McGregor observed that he had never seen a quarterback with a quicker release than Alan Castro.
So whatever happened to Alan Castro?
At the time of McGregor’s comment, Castro had finished an injury-marred first season at Cave Spring and was preparing to transfer to North Cross. He has spent the past two seasons at Hidden Valley, where he might have gone in 2006 if he had been eligible to play football.
Castro had suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament as a freshman at Cave Spring and subsequent injuries and operations prevented him from completing a full season until this year.
In a Hidden Valley offense that feature tailback David Turner, who had 209 carries for 1,029 yards, Castro completed 84 of 194 passes (43.3 percent) for 1,492 yards and 10 TDs.
He actually had better statistics as both a sophomore at North Cross and junior at Hidden Valley and finished his career with 4,652 yards and 39 touchdowns.
According to my unofficial records, Castro is third on the all-time Timesland passing list behind Andrew Lewis’ Eddie Joyce (6,351) and Lord Botetourt’s Anthony Ford (5,026).
Castro is tied for second in touchdown passes with Rockbridge County’s Jonathan Wilson behind Joyce, who had 64 in a much-celebrated Andrew Lewis career that ended in 1972.
(For the neophytes in the readership, Andrew Lewis serviced the area that now sends students to Salem High School).
I WAS PROMPTED to write about Castro this week by a reader who had attended a recent Duke game and had seen Castro among a group of prospects on the sidelines.
The reader knew enough about Duke’s recruiting to know that the Blue Devils were virtually finished with this year’s class, already had taken a quarterback, and were not in position to offer Castro.
All of that was correct.
Check out the recruits standing outside the tunnel at most games and only a few of the names are recognizable. In all likelihood, Castro wasn’t the only kid at Duke who didn’t have an offer.
Castro does have a history at Duke, where he underwent an “allograft” this summer in one last attempt to stabilize his knee. Allografts, involving the use of ligaments and other tissue from cadavers, have had increased usage in recent years.
“He came into his senior year faster and stronger than he’s ever been in high school,” Castro’s father, Armando said. “His junior year, he didn’t really train going into that season. The whole family, we were paralyzed with fear, to be honest with you.”
One Division I-A school that kept up with Castro was Louisville, but the Cardinals are in the midst of a 5-4 season that has raised some uncertainty about the status of second-year head coach Steve Kragthorpe.
Castro measures 6 foot 2 and 196 pounds, and he runs 40 yards in 4.7 seconds, according to his dad.
“He wants to play Division I,” Armando Castro said. “If he doesn’t get any offers – you can see, there aren’t any junior colleges around the schools he wants – then prep school is probably going to be the other offer.”
The best bet would be Fork Union Military for both Castro and his favorite receiver since grade school, Matt Aiken. Aiken’s brother, Danny, spent a postgraduate season at Fork Union and ended up with a scholarship from Virginia, where he is in his second season as the Cavaliers’ deep snapper.
READERS OF THE print edition of The Roanoke Times may have noticed an item in Thursday’s College Notebook to the effect that Al Groh was interviewed for the Virginia Tech job before Frank Beamer was hired in December 1986.
I wasn’t looking for information on Beamer and Groh. I was trying to find out how many interceptions Salem mayor and this week’s Fearless Forecasters’ guest, Randy Foley, had as a senior at Salem High School.
I pored over microfilm until I was dizzy but could never find any information about Foley. However, I found a series of articles on Tech’s coaching search, most written by longtime friend Blair Kerkhoff, who has been at the Kansas City Star for almost 20 years.
In an article dated Dec. 20, 1986, Kerkhoff said that then-Tech athletic director Dutch Baughman had interviewed Groh in Birmingham, Ala. What’s interesting is that Groh was still Wake Forest coach at the time, given that the 1986 season was his last at the helm.
As it turned out, he remained at Wake Forest until mid-January, resigning when athletic director Dr. Gene Hooks declined to renew his contract. One week after Groh resigned, the Deacons hired Bill Dooley, the former Hokies’ coach whom Groh had attempted to succeed.
But enough of Groh. Here are some of the other items I found interesting:
Beamer’s first contract was for four years and $80,000 per year “with various benefits.” What does he make now? More than $2 million per year?
Bobby Ross, who was offered the job, did not have a job when he twice turned down the Tech job. He was interviewed by Tech, California and Purdue before taking an assistant’s job with the Buffalo Bills. Ross had resigned at Maryland on Dec. 1, citing “broken promises and lack of administration support,” according to Kerkhoff’s piece.
Bruce Arians, former Tech quarterback and then-Temple head coach, removed his name from consideration. In an article published Dec. 22, one day before Beamer’s introduction, the only other candidates known to have interviewed were Groh and Dooley’s offensive coordinator, Pat Watson. Should we assume Groh was in the final three?
Other names mentioned at various stages were then-Tulane coach Mack Brown, Miami offensive coordinator Gary Stevens and Willliam and Mary coach Jimmye Laycock. Steve Spurrier, then observing a one-year break from football after serving as coach of the United States Football League’s Tampa Bay Bandits, spoke with Baughman by phone but was concentrating on the job at LSU job that went to Mike Archer, now the defensive coordinator at N.C. State.
Spurrier ended up at Duke for the 1987 season following the resignation of Steve Sloan.
