From NASA’s formation, to the U.S. participation in the Korean and Vietnam wars, to John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Ted Castillo worked as a sports writer.
Castillo covered football full-time for The Advocate from 1948 until 1991 and continued part-time coverage until 2002, starting and ending his career with Louisiana high school football games.
He still remembers the first game he ever covered at The Advocate in September 1948, when Baker High School’s football team defeated Natchitoches. Surprisingly, he said not much has changed in covering games since then, besides one obvious shift in technology.
“I wouldn’t cover it any different than I did when I first started,” Castillo said. “The only thing is [writers] have these laptops out. You no longer use a typewriter. I don’t think they go back to the office as much as we used to. They just send it in, and that’s it.”
Castillo covered multiple sports, but he dedicated himself to high school football coverage. Advocate reporter Joe Macaluso was just beginning his journalism career when Castillo worked for the paper, but he said he’ll always remember Castillo as “Mr. Prep Sports in Louisiana” during a time when schools were starting to desegregate.
“There was a lot in Ted’s tenure from the period after the war until he retired in 1991 where high school athletics exploded in the Baton Rouge area,” Macaluso said. “That demanded a lot from a writer, and Ted was up to the task. He kept up with it all.”
Macaluso went to LSU after attending Jesuit High School in New Orleans. He said his school was one of the first in the area to be integrated in 1961.
“All that happened while Ted was writing for The Advocate,” Macaluso said. “It made a big difference in how they covered high school sports. All of a sudden, instead of covering three schools, you’re covering 12 or 13 schools.”
During Castillo’s time at The Advocate, he covered three Super Bowls in New Orleans and Game Four of the 1977 World Series in Los Angeles, when the Yankees beat the Dodgers, 4-2. Former manager Lou Piniella was a Yankee player at the time and singled home Reggie Jackson for the first run of the game.
“Ron Guidry pitched that day for the Yankees,” Castillo said. “He’s from Lafayette. They called him ‘Louisiana Lightning.'”
Though he recalls covering the New York game well, he said it was a different sporting event involving the city of New York he remembers most.
“The NIT [Tournament] up at Madison Square Garden in New York City, that was the end of Pete Maravich’s career at LSU,” Castillo said. “That was a big deal up there. That’s one thing I remember.”
Maravich wasn’t the only legendary LSU athlete Castillo remembers covering. He said of all the athletes he watched at LSU, Bob Pettit, Billy Cannon and Alvin Dark were among the best. Castillo called Dark the most versatile of the group, and he said he covered Pettit since high school and knew he’d be a superstar.
Castillo earned the Louisiana Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism in 1987. Candidates must be at least 60 years old or have three decades of journalism credentials, displaying their tremendous dedication to journalism.
The award didn’t mean Castillo would stop writing, ending his career at a Catholic High football game against Ruston in 2002.
Castillo is done covering sports now, but can still be found in press boxes across LSU, more than 60 years after he started writing in Baton Rouge.
“I go to both women’s and men’s basketball, baseball and football,” Castillo said. “I don’t go to much track, one reason being no restroom. They have no railings to get. Last two or three years, I had to have help to get to the press box and go down.”
 
 
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Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected].