The ultimate winner: It takes more than numbers to sum up Castle's career

The easy way to sum up Bill Castle’s coaching career is simply listing numbers — 473, 60, 53, 9, 8, 2, 29, 52, 47, 1, 1, 100, 3 — and they certainly tell a lot when you look at what each number means. The numbers stand for in order, take a deep breath, total wins, regular-season winning streak, overall winning streak, state finals, state titles, national titles, district titles, number of years at Lakeland, number of years at Lakeland as a head coach, first all-time in Florida in wins, first in Florida in state titles for a public school, FHSAA Coach of the Century, Florida Dairy Farmers Coach of the Year Awards.

The irony in just listing numbers is that these numbers might mean more to everyone else but Castle. Sure, at some point, Castle probably takes pride in what he accomplished as a high school football coach. You don’t do something you love for a half century and not care what the results are. But ask him about those accomplishments and he brushes off the question.

Castle was never one to look back, especially on successes. You could get him to talk more about coming up short to Manatee during the span between his first two state titles or about coming up short in ’97 and ’98 than you could about getting him to talk about the state championship seasons.

But that’s how he was. Win on Friday and it’s forgotten. The next game was what was important. The losses — well, they tended to linger into the next week.

Polk County athletic director Dan Talbot, who was an assistant coach under Castle in the mid-2000s, probably summed it up best when describing what made Castle such a great coach.

“He’s a genius at football for one thing,” Talbot said. “He’s has a tireless work ethic. I truly believe that he convinces himself that no matter who we play, there’s no chance to win. That’s his mindset.”

Indeed.

Castle always tried to keep the focus on the next game. He never took an opponent for granted. I’d look at an opposing team, see how it had done, and figured that Lakeland would win by at least three touchdowns. Then I’d talk to Castle and come away thinking — just as Talbot noted — Lakeland would be lucky to not get blown out. Castle simply wasn’t going to overlook anything.

Also make no mistake,  Castle was extremely competitive in everything he does.

If Castle was loathe to talk about his accomplishments, he didn’t mind talking about his players, past or present. And he wasn’t one to oversell a player simply because he was a Dreadnaught.

When doing stories on a top prospect, there would be times where you could tell Castle was hesitant to talk about a player because he thought the player was perhaps being overrated by college scouts or the player was underachieving for Lakeland at the moment, and Castle would carefully couch his comments.

On the other hand, you could easily see him light up when you mention a player — especially if he wasn’t a star — that had caught his attention, a player that was doing everything a coach could ask and making a big impact on the team.

And Castle always was always quite eloquent when talking about his mentor, Paul Quinn. When Quinn was honored in 1990 at a Lakeland-Bartow football game, Castle got choked up talking about him.

“He had goosebumps and tears in his eyes,” former defensive coordinator Clay Taylor recalled in 2006. “His voice was cracking, talking about him. It just got the attention of the team. We could have played with the Tampa Bay Bucs that night.”

Castle described Quinn as one of the most influential person who ever influenced his coaching career.

"From the get-go, I was was fortunate to hook up with Paul because at the time, he certainly was one the more credible coaches in the state and one of the more successful coaches,” Castle once told The Ledger.

It certainly is mind-blowing how lock he coached. When he got the head coaching job in the spring of 1976, I was in Miss Kiskan’s sixth-grade class at Most Precious Blood School in Hyde Park, Mass. The only thing I knew about Lakeland was that it was next to Winter Haven, where my Red Sox held spring training. Who knew I’d go on to regularly cover Castle longer than any other writer, including covering six of his nine state championship games, including five of the eight titles.

In some way, Castle is a different than when he began coaching in the '70s. In 2006 when doing a story on Castle’s 30 years at Lakeland, he admitted that he had mellowed. By then, he no longer was tipping over tables with cups filled with Gatorade. And he was more media friendly by then too. Castle has been described from by former assistants as being an introvert except when coaching his players.

In other ways, Castle is the same. From the start, he was most at home on the practice field and admitted that there likely will be days next fall when he’ll miss being at practice.

As a game coach, Castle was always learning. A defensive coach under Quinn, Castle took over the offense when he became head coach. For 47 years, he kept learning, kept adding and adapting his offenses as he kept adding up with the changes in the game.

Lakeland had various formations and sets, from the traditional fullback and tailback with quarterback under center, a tight end and two wide receivers to having the quarterback in the shotgun with three or four receivers. He played power football running traps, sweeps and going right up the middle of opposing defenses, ran the triple-option, in later years ran RPOs and also spread it out and have the quarterback throw.

His offenses always had a lot they could do , it was always interesting to watching him carve out the part of his offense he would employ the most as he learned about his teams and what the particular strengths were year to year. For a coach known for wanting to run the ball, Castle had certainly had teams that would throw.

Sometimes trying to do a lot wasn't a good thing, but Castle learned from his mistake. When Lakeland lost to Haines City, 2-0, in 2001, he later admitted that should have kept it simply. He said he kept on trying to do everything he normally did with the offense, instead of simplifying and just try to win the game.

I don’t know if the Haines City game was on his mind, but the years after 2001 when I started covering Lakeland regularly, there have been plenty times where you could see Castle simplify the offense and go to the basics when the offense was struggling. One notable example came against Osceola in 2006. In the first half, Lakeland mixed in passing with the running game and nearly had a big completion down the sideline late in the first half, but it went off the receiver’s fingers and Lakeland failed to score in the half.

In the second half with Lakeland trailing by three points, it was just a steady diet of Chris Rainey and Jamar Taylor running the ball. Eventually, Rainey broke a big run, and Lakeland won. It wasn’t pretty, but the end result what was most important.

I’ve seen that happen many times over the years.

There certainly is more to Castle's career than just numbers, but if you want to sum up Castle’s career by numbers, perhaps these numbers sum it up best: 14, 88, 7:12. Those are the numbers from the last Castle’s last offensive drive as coach. With Lakeland leading Venice, 21-14, in the fourth quarter, the Dreadnaughts got the ball at their own 10. Lakeland ran the ball 14 straight plays and drove 89 yards to the Venice 1 where Zack Pleuss took a knee for a 1-yard loss, and the game was over. It was the type of coaching you get with 47 years of experience.

There was no need to try to get style points. Castle's goal was to simply win the game, and he would win games by any means necessary. After all, Castle was the ultimate winner.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: The ultimate winner: It takes more than numbers to sum up Castle's career