Wrestling champion turned coach, Castro steps down after 20 seasons to serve as spiritual mentor for Club Sports

Leaving a legacy of success on and off the mat, Jesse Castro (’81, ’85, ’15) resigned this summer after his 20th season as head coach of Liberty University’s men’s wrestling team. He has accepted a position on the Club Sports Holistic Development staff, working as a spiritual mentor for student-athletes from five or six teams, including men’s wrestling.

Castro was the longest-serving and winningest head coach in the history of Liberty’s wrestling program, compiling a record of 218-94 over his 20 seasons at the helm, starting in 2006 at the NCAA Division I level. He succeeded Don Shuler, who coached the team to a 189-100-5 record, mostly at the NCAA Division II level, and program founder Bob Bonheim, who retired with a record of 118-35-1, mostly at the NCCAA level.

“The program has only had three coaches. I’m the third, so to follow in the footsteps of Coach Bonheim and Coach Shuler was certainly some big shoes to fill,” Castro said. “Every good man stands on the shoulders of great men, and I’m part of their legacy. Those guys are the ones who have tilled the ground. I happened to be the one who has benefited from their laying that foundation. My starting point is the work that they accomplished, the work that the Lord accomplished through them.”

Unlike his predecessors, Castro first established himself on the mat as a member of the Flames. A four-time individual and team NCCAA National Champion and one-time NAIA All-American during his wrestling career from 1976-81, Castro posted a 101-20-2 record and was inducted into the 2012 class of Liberty’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

He served as a graduate assistant for three seasons under Bonheim and as assistant coach for two seasons under Shuler before coaching for nine seasons at Norwich University, an NCAA Division III school in Vermont and eight at Kingsway Regional High School in New Jersey. After returning to Liberty at founder Dr. Jerry Falwell’s request in 2005, Castro became a four-time NCAA Division I East Region Coach of the Year and led the Flames to five NCAA DI East Region titles, coaching 25 NCAA Division I national qualifiers from 2005-11.

The Flames were reclassified as an NCWA program for the 2011-12 season, and Castro went on to lead wrestlers to 31 individual NCWA national championships and 117 NCWA All-American performances. Even more impressively, he guided Liberty to five NCWA Grand National team championships — including the first in Club Sports history in 2015 — and six NCWA National Duals team titles in 14 seasons.

“I hope and pray that I did well to carry on the vision and the mission of the founder, Dr. Jerry Falwell, and to continue the legacy of Coach Bonheim and Coach Shuler to not only build up the program, but to build strong men in every area of life,” Castro said.

The spiritual impact the program has had on the hundreds of student-athletes who have come through the program is immeasurable.

“I’ve often quoted one of my wrestlers, that ‘Wrestling is but a tool in the hand of God that He uses to build character in our lives,'” Castro said. “I’d like to think that’s what we’re doing. Whether we plant, whether we water, or whether we harvest, God’s the One responsible for that. So, we don’t know the fruit of our labor until years later.”

The motivation and intensity he maintained on as a coach was an extension of his career as a competitive wrestler.

“Maybe that was to some degree inherent, but every perfect gift comes from the Lord, our Heavenly Father,” Castro said. “We are all wired differently, but that is something He planted in me, the desire and the drive to succeed or excel. It formulated in my heart, since my salvation as a 16-year-old, and God has used it. When I stepped on the mats for the very first time, I was driven. … I set my goals early and knew what I wanted to accomplish and was willing to pay a heavy price to do that.”

Castro is considering completing his doctorate degree. He first received his undergraduate degree in physical education in 1981 before earning his master’s degree in 1986 through Lynchburg College and his Education Specialist (EdS) degree through Liberty University Online Programs in 2015.

“I have all of my doctoral classwork done but have yet to do my dissertation, and I don’t know if I want to do that,” Castro said. “No man builds a tower without first counting the cost. Whether you are pursuing a doctoral degree or pursuing a national championship, you’d better count the cost first.”

As he prepares to hand off the program to his successor, who is expected to be named this week, Castro remains involved in the recruiting and interviewing process to ensure the program stays on the right path toward an even brighter future.

“We want to stay mission-minded,” he said. “It is a continual reminder for me, the very fact that the history of the program, the very regimen that I was under here as a student-athlete was to be Training Champions for Christ and instilling biblical principles through the sport of wrestling. I know in my own life I would not be who I am if it wasn’t for that spiritual emphasis. As a young believer, Liberty was my foundation, and the formation of my faith was established here. That’s what I’m drawing from, and I desire to instill that into the hearts and minds of every young wrestler that comes through our program.”

He said Falwell gave him the right mindset for bringing in prospective student-athletes who would advance the mission of the team and the university.

“When I asked about recruiting, what he would like to see me do philosophically, he said, ‘We’re not just recruiting Sunday School kids,'” Castro said. “You recruit on the basis of building a strong culture, so you get strong believers, but there might be one or two very strong wrestlers that you can minister to and help transform so that they give their lives to Christ.”

He enjoyed Training Champions for Christ while developing NCWA national champions over the past two decades at Liberty.

“Both were fulfilling,” Castro said. “One has eternal value and the other is temporal, but they’re both fun.”

After wrapping up his final recruiting class, Castro is looking forward to his mentorship role within the Club Sports department.

“I am not ready to lay down and go out to pasture yet,” he said. “The Lord has opened this door, and I am excited to jump in head-first. It’s going to be exciting to see how the coaches respond, how the athletes respond. It’s not a high-pressure thing. We’re not going to force people to be involved in it, but to encourage them and love on them and offer ourselves up as mentors. Hopefully, they’ll see that as valuable.”

>>Watch a video of Castro speaking on the topic of resilience recorded in October 2022 in the Montview Student Union, Alumni Ballroom.