Ray Castle has had a dream to go to the Pan-American Games, and a month ago that dream came true.
Castle, an assistant professor in kineseology, attended the mid-August contest in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Repulic as a member of the USA Medical Staff. He served as an athletic trainer for the USA Cycling and Track team.
According to the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles’s Web site, the Pan-American games is a series of regional contests for athletes, as opposed to a global contest like the Olympics. Participants in the Pan-American Games are from North America, South America and nations in the Caribbean Sea.
Earning a spot on the USA Medical Staff was not an overnight accomplishment for Castle.
The process of becoming a part of the medical team starts with an applicant being certified by a medical review board, and then there is a period of volunteer service at an Olympic training center.
“I applied, and a couple of years later I got a letter saying I had been invited to do the voluntary rotation,” Castle said.
Castle’s voluntary service was in 1999 at the Olympic training center in Lake Placid, N.Y. In the four years it took for him to receive an invitation to the Pan-Am Games, Castle thought he might not get a call back.
“I had dropped them a line to notify them where I was in February, and in March I got a letter congratulating me and inviting me to the Pan-Am Games,” he said.
Castle said he was talking to a friend on the telephone when he opened the congratulatory letter. He said he could hardly believe the letter had come.
“I almost dropped the phone,” Castle said.
Working with the USA Cycling and Track team was rewarding both professionally and personally for Castle.
“I was responsible for preparing them to compete at the best level they can,” he said. “You get to know each other in a very short time.”
Ryan Green, a kineseology graduate student and athletic trainer, is one of Castle’s coworkers. He also has done his voluntary service at an Olympic training center.
Green compared Castle’s experience as a trainer to a step toward his peak performance.
“Athletes always want to be at the pinnacle of their sport,” Green said. “The pinnacle for athletic trainers would be the Olympics.”
Green said he was proud of Castle’s position on the USA Medical Team.
“It’s definitely something to be proud of,” Green said. “He was representing LSU, the department of athletic training and the USA.”
Castle’s coworkers are not the only members of the University community who are proud.
Sean Schexnayder, a kineseology freshman, will soon be starting a voluntary athletic training program supervised by Castle. He is glad to be learning from Castle.
“He must be on top of his game if he got to attend [the Pan-American Games],” Schexnayder said. “We’ve got people teaching with first-hand experience from international competition.”
Castle is glad to have made it the Pan-American Games, but his dream does not stop there.
The next step Castle would like to take for his athletic training career would be to go to the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
“That would be fantastic to be back where the Olympics started – in Greece,” he said.