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Setting the record straight

Unearthed records reveal Monticello 80's records still stand

Richard Ross - Reporter/Photographer
Posted 6/3/21

MONTICELLO -- The sport of track and field abounds with numbers: distances, heights, lengths of jumps and of greatest interest, records be they school, section, state or national.

Recently while …

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Setting the record straight

Unearthed records reveal Monticello 80's records still stand

Posted

MONTICELLO -- The sport of track and field abounds with numbers: distances, heights, lengths of jumps and of greatest interest, records be they school, section, state or national.

Recently while reporting on the Goshen Trotters Carnival track meet, this writer in the course of celebrating the phenomenal performance of Monticello junior Evan Waterton, mentioned that his season's number-one state time of 4:16.20 constituted a new Monticello record in the event. My source for that bit of minutiae was MileSplit NY that lists the records held by members of teams across the state.

But those entries are dependent on the coaches and Athletic Directors sending them in. There is no central clearinghouse for that information nor could there be without the due diligence of those to report and certify their efficacy.

In this case, former Monticello track coach and subsequent Athletic Director Ken Garry read the article and helped me to learn about Mike Castillo who in 1985 ran the 1600 in 4:14.8, a school record that still stands. That stellar race was at the Johnstown Invitational.

That day he also ran 1:55 to capture the 800 and ran a 51 second split in the winning 4x400 relay. Castillo won the 800 in the state meet that year in 1:53.95, another Monti record that is still on the books but not on MileSplit.

A conversation with Castillo who now resides in Seattle was an opportunity to hear about his love of running . His career continued at Penn State.

Castillo spoke about the great satisfaction of doing his best, something every runner can and should seek to do. In the end, that has a much greater shelf life than victories or records. It was another era, one before the mass digitalization of times so readily transmitted by the internet and spread far and wide by social media.

Castillo looked long and hard to find just one picture of himself back in the day. Today there would be hundreds. This writer's agenda in writing about this is two-fold: first to give credit where credit is due to an athlete whose times 36 years ago are still school records.

Thanks to Ken Garry who kept these precious numbers so that they could be revisited. On another note, this was written to prompt better communication of important track and field milestones and to keep this ever-changing information up to date.

A better system needs to be put in place to gather this information and to make it available to anyone interested. No doubt there are countless other records that still stand but are unknown. Thus they are often obviated by current performances which while remarkable in their own right, do not supersede what was done before. Garry currently serves as a track and field official.

Speaking of Waterton, he has another year to break Castillo's record and recently at the Cornwall Steeplechase, he recorded the fastest time in the state this year (9:35.09).

Castillo feels Waterton can break his 1600 record.

“Records are meant to be broken. I wish him luck,” he said.

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