Parent complaints pile up against CHS coach Castillo; district, principal offer support

RIO RANCHO — When the story about Rio Rancho High School baseball coach Ron Murphy being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation hit social media, people began asking why Cleveland High softball coach Angel Castillo wasn’t being investigated.

The first official day for high school softball practice arrived Feb. 5, with the 2024 season around the corner.

Before the first pitch, many tips came to the Rio Rancho Observer expressing concern that Castillo was still the head coach for the Storm softball team.

In fact, several parents of former players came forward to the Observer to discuss the issues their daughters faced while playing for Castillo.

They’re united with their complaints of how Castillo treated their daughters in the school’s classrooms, hallways, softball complex and even in the varsity field’s pressbox, where one former player was allegedly lambasted by five coaches, including Castillo, for her decision to play for a club team that was not Castillo’s, the New Mexico Reign.

Among those complaints lodged toward Castillo:

• He and his staff have used bullying tactics to compel CHS players to play for his club team, the New Mexico Reign.

• When Storm players refuse to play with the Reign, preferring other teams — some even out of state — they are cut from the team. Several of them are or were starters for the Storm.

• He has been verbally abusive toward players, sometimes directing that abuse toward a player in front of her teammates.

It turns out, Castillo was investigated in 2017 with the result available in 2018, but Rio Rancho Public Schools declined the Information of Public Records Act request on the findings, citing the law’s personnel records exemption.

One former Rio Rancho Public Schools administrator says this is “old news,” but the fact that it was apparently covered up by the school and RRPS means it is a story that should be told.

“My hands are tied — I wish I had more information,” said RRPS Board of Education member Gary Tripp, a former executive director of the New Mexico Activities Association as well as a former coach. “I do know there are complaints.”

Now, new complaints are coming out about Castillo.

Parent complaints

• David Jaramillo, the father of two-sport Aubrey Jaramillo (make that former two-sport student-athlete; she doesn’t play softball anymore) submitted a lengthy report documenting his displeasure to the district, noting, “On Tuesday, August 9, 2022, Aubrey had a meeting in person with … Castillo. During this meeting, Aubrey advised Coach Castillo she was not going to play for his club team, NM Reign, during the fall of 2022. Aubrey advised that she had three years left of her high (school) athletic career and wanted to go her own way because she is trying to pursue a college scholarship and wanted to play with her club softball team NM Suncats and her club basketball team NM Clippers. Aubrey asked … what he wanted her to do about the seventh-period class. Coach Castillo told her he wanted her to show her face and agreed to keep those two days a week so that she could stay in contact with her softball teammates.”

David Jaramillo said about a month went by and things were going well as she was attending softball workouts on Wednesdays and Thursdays and basketball workouts on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

Then on Sept. 11, 2022, he said, Aubrey attended a softball scrimmage at Trinidad State in Colorado with her NM Suncats team. On social media, Aubrey posted a positive, thankful message about attending the college scrimmage.

On Sept. 12, 2022, during seventh-period sports class … (Castillo began) “telling her she is a distraction to the team, she doesn’t work hard, she doesn’t put in the work, and she shows up whenever she wants. Coach Castillo informed Aubrey in this meeting he did not want her to come to the scheduled days for the seventh-period workouts any more and to stay with basketball full time until the softball season started,” Jaramillo said.

Also that month, he added, Aubrey “was hearing from her best friends Mya Pacheco and Alivia Hughes (CHS softball players) that Coach Castillo was telling the softball girls that Aubrey could not be trusted, she was a traitor, and that she left them hanging,” which David Jaramillo reported to the district. “Again, to me this was another indication that Coach Castillo was retaliating on Aubrey … creating a hostile environment on campus for a student-athlete who was attending school to complete her academic studies.”

Here’s what really angered David Jaramillo: “On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, after Cleveland High School softball tryouts, Aubrey arrived home very emotional, crying and hyperventilating. After my wife calmed her down, Aubrey informed us that she was cut from the softball team. Aubrey indicated not only was she cut from the team but was (cornered) in the field press box directly behind the backstop and bleachers” by Castillo and four other Cleveland softball coaches,” he noted. “During this meeting, all five coaches ‘teed off’ on her for 30 minutes about her commitment, her character, her loyalty and untrustworthiness. No questions were directed at her or to inform her about her performance and skills related to the tryout and why she was cut from the team. Aubrey said the first question out of the coach’s mouth was if she was committed. Aubrey told the coaches she was committed to (CHS softball). That was when coaches started yelling at her, telling her that she was wrong. They said this is a 12-month commitment. They began to insult and demoralize her character. They called her a liar and a cheater,” David said.

This incident prompted the family to file an incident report with the Rio Rancho Police Department. The report, which is marked as inactive, reiterates the Jaramillos’ belief that Castillo was upset with the lack of time Aubrey had been attending softball practices and that it was due to her involvement within another club team. “David told me a couple weeks back Angel told the Cleveland softball team not to talk to Aubrey or they would have their playing time cut. David said some of the softball players told Aubrey this is what the coach said.”

The incident report also outlines the press box incident, noting that Aubrey said Castillo was recording the conversation “so they wouldn’t get their words twisted.”

“Aubrey said she felt she couldn’t leave the room and she felt intimidated because the coaches weren’t talking about the actual sport and were coming at her as a person who she was.”

It also notes that Aubrey said she never tried to leave or walk out of the press box and that they never told her she wasn’t free to leave and that none of the coaches touched her.

• Tanya Lopez knows that under “normal” circumstances, her daughter Mya Pacheco would be excitedly eyeing her senior season, looking ahead to one final adventure with her classmates and teammates.

“He has emotionally broken down my child,” says Lopez of Castillo. “When is enough going to be enough?”

Pacheco, who signed her letter of intent to play for the University of New Mexico softball team next season, played for the Reign, as well as for the OC Batbusters in California, for whom she swatted 14 home runs during a tournament in December.

Says her mother, “Castillo’s misuse of power (includes) intimidation, retaliation, bullying, harassment, threats, and humiliation directed at young female athletes. I have personally raised these concerns at one point or another with Castillo, Matt Martinez (CHS athletic director), the former RRPS Athletic Director Bruce Carver and, more recently, to the new RRPS Human Resources executive director, Mike Chavez, and RRPS Athletic Director Todd Resch.”

She says that got her nowhere.

“I was informed by the district (that) this was a personnel issue and could not be discussed further, yet Mr. Castillo remains a prominent fixture in this program. Furthermore, he continues to speak negatively about former players … The school/district dismisses these actions and chalks it up to tough coaching, parental dissatisfaction due to playing time, difficulties in managing challenging players, or parents being influenced by outside influences.

“This isn’t just a disgruntled parent situation — something deeper is affecting these young girls’ mental well-being. … The key question is why some players won’t be returning this season: Is it merely unhappiness for not getting one’s way, or is there a more profound issue driving them away?” Lopez mused.

• Jessica Taylor says she remembers seeing that championship team of 2021 and looking ahead to what 2024 would bring, with more than a handful of then-freshmen and eighth grader Jaramillo on that roster.

In fact, her daughter, Avianna Fierro, scored the Storm’s final run in that memorable 3-0 win over Carlsbad.

“Their hopes and dreams are no longer there because of one person,” Taylor lamented.

Like the others, Avi didn’t want to play for the Reign and spent last summer playing for a club team in Arizona. The family had moved to the north side of Northern Blvd. so Avi could play softball for the Storm.

She’s had multiple college offers, and her mother seems challenged to keep her daughter playing the game she used to love so much.

“Ongoing mental abuse,” is a phrase she used to describe Castillo’s behavior, remembering her daughter coming home after games in 2023 “so upset and crying.

“As a mom, it’s really heartbreaking,” Taylor concluded.

• Amber Pappas said Castillo “outcasted (her daughter Alivia Hughes) because she wouldn’t play for his club team … She was told by players they were not allowed to talk to her,” and called it “bullying behavior.”

Hughes, a CHS senior, plays for the club team Poison, has been playing the game since she was 8 or 9 years old, but, Pappas says, basically “has lost her love for the sport.”

This spring, Hughes is trying out for the golf team.

“She really tried to appease him,” Pappas lamented.

• Tre Jackson, the father of sophomore Kylee Jackson, once served as an assistant coach for the Reign. He doesn’t have many good memories.

“I witnessed quite a few of the things he would do, you know, but for the most part, I mean he would berate kids for their race, he would berate them for their weight … he personally threatened my daughter. I called him and told him I wouldn’t put up with (any) more, my daughter is done with the abuse. When you quit his club team, then he would call you and tell you, ‘If you’re not going to play for Reign, you’re not gonna play varsity. It’s gonna hurt your chances … really bad.’

“He would tell the girls things like where they need to go to school, ‘You want to go to schools on the East Coast — those are schools for white girls.’ And then, ‘Girls that look like you aren’t going to survive out there’. … It was really bad. And then the yelling — he does a good job of keeping the mental games with the girls.”

Down but not out, Kylee is now with the track and field team.

Tre Jackson decided a meeting was due.

“After she came home (one day), devastated and crying, she heard what he said, and then all the varsity girls, who love my daughter, told her what he said and so I put in a call to Mr. Castillo. … He texted me back and said, ‘I’ll talk to you.’”

Before the meeting, his daughter called him, asking him not to meet with Castillo, because during the seventh-period class, “He went off, talking about ‘everything I do, you girls want to run home and tell your parents, and after this, I got a meeting after this with a parent,’ and just going off, berating the parent that’s going to come up there.

“After that, that’s when I set up a meeting with him, the athletic director and the ninth-grade principal. … I didn’t get nowhere — he justified everything he’s doing, telling them he’s allowed to criticize girls during meetings. … I told him, ‘You know, it’s one thing to review game footage for educational purposes, but you don’t review game footage to criticize girls, to belittle girls. It’s for development purposes, not to berate girls.’

“After that meeting, it was not going well and they didn’t want to hear my side, and they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. He tried to make it (appear) that I was upset because my daughter wasn’t playing varsity, and I made it perfectly clear that I’m not upset my daughter’s not playing varsity; I don’t care what my daughter plays as long as she’s doing what she wants to do — she’s doing what she loves. I said I’m here because I don’t appreciate the way you berated her and criticized her in front of her teammates.”

• Brandi Reilly said her family became so distraught that they sold their home and moved to Kansas.

The mother of Abby Reilly, she said her daughter “was making herself physically sick” and “Castillo’s trying to create division … (and causing) a toxic relationship.”

What was even more distressing was the way Castillo treated her daughter, who has a tumor in her head and once went to practice, still loopy from dental surgery and medication, and referred to her as a slacker.

Reilly went to the district administration, “asked him to investigate … (was told), ‘OK, we’ll look into this,’ and nothing happened.”

“The sport was all she had,” Reilly said. Now in Kansas City, on a new team, “she’s thriving.”

• Savannah Predika, the first eighth-grader to play for the varsity (2012-17), quit and still suffers from “all the long-term effects from playing and being in basically boot camp for five years.

“I loved the game; I just didn’t like the people I was with,” she said. “He made it feel like a job instead of a get-away, I guess you could say. … He would tell us, ‘If you don’t play for our club team, you don’t play for our high school team.’ And you weren’t allowed to miss a practice, either.” She did play for his club team, though.

“Angel never let us take a break, and when we played in high school, it was always go-go-go every single day, twice a day, during the summer, during the winter. You never got a break. My bicep tendon is shredded and my shoulder blade is dislocated; I was supposed to have surgery just to end up being in the same position if he was going to make me continuously play after having surgery.”

She also suffered a back injury after she a bad slide. “I ended up tearing a joint in my hip and he rushed me and made me come back before my doctor cleared me to play. He kept telling me, ‘Don’t go to the doctor;’ and to go to the athletic trainer. He used to make me go to (the athletic trainer) a lot for these injuries, to get ice or whatever,” none of which would take care of a joint tear.

• Chris Nez, who also once helped Castillo coach, said his daughter Nalani, now a CHS senior, “was actually one of the first people to quit. … Her confidence level was so low, she didn’t think she was good enough to play anymore,” he said.

Nalani, playing on a different club team and once on the Storm JV as an eighth grader, pitched against the Reign one time and when the game was over, Castillo refused to shake her hand after the game. Nalani had the nerve, Chris Nez said, to get pitching lessons in El Paso. She’s another former player who turned to another sport — in this case, golf. Chris Nez once served as a golf pro at Chamisa Hills Country Club in Rio Rancho.

What bugs him the most, he said, is, “He’s ruining these young girls who could still be playing for him or somebody else.”

• Another parent, granted anonymity because of her situation with CHS, said, “One of my daughters who has graduated and is playing at the next level had a horrible senior year playing for Coach Castillo and has severed all ties with the Castillo family and has asked us that if any of them ask how she is doing, that we not tell them anything. My senior daughter, who has been on varsity since her freshman year, has lost all interest in playing for coach Castillo, and has chosen not to play in order to avoid having a mentally stressed senior year.”

In summation, “These girls just want to play softball,” says Tre Jackson. “The berating and the mental games, I just want that to go away. You’re a coach — be a coach, that’s all that’s needed. … I just want my daughter to go to school, play the game. We put so much emphasis on kids bullying kids but not on adults bullying kids. And every day my daughter goes to school, she gets dirty looks because she came and then I stood up for her, and, you know, they really try to make her life miserable.”

Savannah Paboucek has a different hope: “Honestly, I want karma to come at him, because it’s not just me that he treated this way, he treated a lot of people this way. A lot of people won’t come forward and speak up — they don’t want to deal with the wrath of him.”

The other side

Some people are rallying to Castillo’s defense, including a few who were asked for a response to the allegations being made against the coach.

Among them was Jacob Candelaria, attorney for Castillo, who told the Observer, “These allegations against my client have already been subjected to a full and lengthy investigation.

“Our client has dedicated his life to the growth and well-being of countless students in Rio Rancho and across the state. We intend to hold the folks perpetuating these false and malicious allegations accountable in court if need be to protect Mr. Castillo’s well-earned reputation as a stellar coach and educator.”

Rio Rancho Public Schools also sent a response to the allegations.

“We won’t comment on individual allegations brought forward by parents and students. It is important that all such matters are appropriately channeled through our established procedures and reported directly to the Executive Director of Athletics,” the district’s communications office stated, adding that the allegations are a number of one-sided narratives that result in unfair and inaccurate assumptions toward the school district.

“These assumptions include doubting Rio Rancho Public Schools’ commitment to taking all reports seriously and conducting thorough investigations, as well as insinuating that incidents have not been appropriately addressed and are being ‘covered up.’ Assertions that these investigations lead nowhere are unfounded and fail to acknowledge the considerable time and exhaustive effort invested by our investigative teams.

“Finally, we want to reiterate that Rio Rancho Public Schools’ investigations are thorough, often spanning weeks or even months, involving multiple interviews with complainants, eyewitnesses, and individuals with relevant information,” the statement continues. “We meticulously review documents, examine camera footage, and more. The outcome of an investigation may not always be to the liking of a complainant, but the outcomes are based on all the data and information gathered and investigated.”

It is unclear if any of the parents who spoke to the Observer were interviewed as part of the investigation.

Sensing something was “in the air,” three men not aware of the parents’ comments spoke in the public comment session at the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education meeting of Feb. 12.

• Buster Mabrey, executive director of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association, said, “(Castillo) has been given the Ralph Bowyer coaching for character award. He’s been a leader in our state and he has taught and coaches thousands of kids in your classrooms. … He hasn’t been arrested. He hasn’t been fired.”

• Jeffrey Johnson, who said his daughter played for more than four seasons with the Storm, and with an eighth-grade daughter looking forward to that opportunity and “she knows how tough of an individual he can be.” Castillo’s “been nothing but an inspiration. He has made them stronger women.” Johnson said when his older daughter incurred a kidney infection while on a road trip with the team in Arizona, Castillo and his wife took her to a hospital. “It is a family environment they have built. … He has been nothing but a plus in my family life.”

• CHS Principal Scott Affentranger also spoke in defense of Castillo.

“We want to be clear that for me and the administrative team at Cleveland High School, we wholeheartedly support Angel Castillo, and I want to say that publicly,” he said. “I appreciate the work that Angel’s done. He’s a good man and I feel like he’s been treated very unfairly by a small group of people and I’m asking for that to stop. He needs to coach kids and be the leader for the kids that he has been for the last several years.”