June 6, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeremiah Castille played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide and was on the last team coached by the legendary “Bear” Bryant.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Jeremiah Castile played
college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide and was on
the last team coached by the legendary Bear Bryant. Castill
was a pallbearer at Bryant's funeral on January twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty three. Let's take a listen to his story.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I was born in nineteen sixty one, Columbus, Georgia. My
father was a World War Two VET, number eight of
nine children. They had about a fourth grade education. I
was born in the project's government housing there at Elizabeth
Kenny Apartments. Then we moved to Phoenix City, Alabama. I
was probably three years old, so around nineteen sixty four
(00:52):
we moved and none of my siblings graduated from high school.
The drugs, the alcohol, the what I saw at home.
Domestic violence was in my house. My mom and dad
fought so at school, That's how I solved my problems
with any of my classmkers was I'm not talking, We're
just going to get right at it. And in my
(01:14):
middle school, during my seventh grade year, I got in
a fight again. I had already been suspended from school
for fighting and I had to take the note home
to my mom for my parents to sign, and it
was a day my mother was sober, so she signed
(01:36):
it and she was handing it back to me, she said, boy,
I'm so disappointed in you.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The Lord used that to grip my heart.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
As a thirteen year old, it just gripped my heart.
I took her back to school, finished the year out
and really realized I needed to change. Oh the little church.
It was Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, little church down the street.
(02:05):
They would do revival every summer. So I have no
interest in you going to church. Any of that hadn't
you know before that, But God drew me based on
I realized I needed to change, and I went. And
so when you came in, the mothers and fathers of
that church asked you where you saved, and I really
(02:27):
didn't know what that meant. They said you must not
be go sit on the front row. So they escorted
me to the front row and they called that the
mourner's bench, and the mothers and fathers of that church
the eldest they just prayed for those people that was
on that front row. And I would say about the
third day of that revival, the Lord saved me. And
what it was as I heard the gospel, the good
(02:49):
news that God loved me and he demonstrated that love
through Jesus Christ on the Cross. The first time of
my life it was communicated to Jeremiah that he was loved.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I would say.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My parents showed me that by providing a place to live, food,
pretty much those basic things, but never communicated verbally that
I was loved. And all the way up to that time,
my mom would get intoxicated and just get violent. So
(03:23):
one day I probably was ten, my mom had a
knife in her hand, kitchen knife, and I wanted to
go play basketball. She was intoxicated. We got an army
in it, and anyway, I ended up with a two
inch scar on my right arm and had to be
taken to the hospital stitches to put in my arm.
(03:44):
So I was dealing with a lot of rejection. So
that third day I heard the gospel and for the
first time, Hey, somebody loved Jeremiah. I tell people, I
walked in that church of Center, walked out of Saint.
That was a radical moment in my life. There wasn't
a lightning and flash, There was a powerful transformation in
(04:08):
my heart. In my inner mand. And the reason I
can say that is because the first person God gave
me a love for was my mother. Now, when God
saved me, he gave me a vision for my life
that in the castile house things could be different and
that he could use me. And so God gave me
a vision to play football. Football really came to be
(04:29):
what I wanted to do in the University of Alabama,
probably my eighth grade year, and so through athletics, I
could get a scholarship, go to school, get an education,
get a job, make enough money to be able to
help my mother get sober, and change the living conditions
of my parents. And that vision disciplined me. I grew
(04:51):
up in a home where drugs and alcohol were sold,
but I've never smoked a marijuana cigarette, I've never drank
a beer. I've never been in toxic That's the power.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Of a dream.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And the dream mattered more than recreational fund that I
could have with teenagers. And so when the Lord save me,
I just became focused on that and I became an
Alabama fan. Also started watching the Coach Bryant Show, and
the vision I'm going to Alabama, I'm gonna go play
(05:23):
football at Alabama. I was five nine, one hundred and
fifty five pounds. It weren't a bunch of people knocking
on the door. I had a breakout year my senior year.
I played both ways, a plate running back, slot, receiver,
and corner and our team actually made it to the playoffs.
We got beat, but it gave schools a chance to
(05:47):
look at me. And I was just small, but I
was very athletic. I could run and jump and was strong.
So I can remember where I got my first letter
from the University of Alabama.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
My coach Wayne Trevor High School.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
He came in one morning in the cafeteria and he
dropped a letter on the table and it had University
of Alabama.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I opened it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Up and it said that I was being recruited, and man,
I start yelling, screaming.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I ran out the doors to the school yard, yelling,
I told you all you know, because I would tell
people I was going to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I came over in the fall of nineteen seventy
eight met coach Bryant. Coach Jeff Rowsey was the coach
that recruited me, and he and I would talk thirty
years or later and so he told me. He says,
you know when you first met coach Brian and he
looked at you and you'd walked off. He said, Jeff,
(06:46):
you sure about him? He's mighty little, And Coach Rowsy said,
trust me, coach, he can play.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I'm a freshman in nineteen seventy nine and that team
is the returning National Champions, and that team is loaded
as got a lot of guys that's gonna go on
to play in the NFL. So I come in as
a freshman in August, and that first week Coach Bryant
made us scrimmage the varsity. He sicked the dog's host. Man,
(07:21):
I mean that's been as way.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So that first week you scrimmage the returning National Champions.
I can remember like yesterday, and they ran this little
belly play and Steve Whitman was the fullback at that time.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
He hit it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
This was one of these quick hitting plays and I
was backsacked tiny and next thing you know, it's just
me and Steve and Steve was about turn forty five
fifty pound full back and I'm like, man, what am
I gonna do? And I was one of those guys
I wasn't afraid of anything. So I just come up
and laid all one hundred and fifty five pounds on
a pop and it didn't bring him down.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
But I start riding till the posse got there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
A couple of weeks later, I'm coming in after practice
and I got a pink sticky note on my locker.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And it said, Coach Bryant want to see you. Man.
I am scared as all get out. I'm like, what
have I done? You know? What have I done wrong?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Anyway, I go up Third Florida Coleman Coliseum in his
office and letting the nose was secretary. She says, Coach
be with you in a minute, man, It was a
long minute. The door opens up, she says, you can
go in. And when I walked in, Coach Bryant was
sitting behind his desk and he was smoking those Chesterfield
(08:44):
cigarettes they smoked and didn't have a filter on, and
he was just and he put it in the ash train.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
He just murmured some words.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He had that old Southern drawl, and I interpreted to
go sit on the couch. He had a black and
white check of the couch in his office. When you
sat down on it, your bottom hit the floor because
he didn't have any legs on it.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So you looking up at.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Him, and you've been listening to Jeremiah Castile tell one
heck of a story about his life.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And by the way, that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Scene of him being called into Bear Bryant's office, and
Bear is a big old man like six ' four,
and I can imagine this short guy's sitting in a
short couch and wondering what the heck is gonna happen next.
When we come back, you'll find out what does happen
next here on our American stories, And we continue with
(09:40):
our American stories and Jeremiah Castile's story. Let's pick up
where he last left off in Coach Bear Bryant's office.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I sit down in the first words Coach Bryant
said to me was you could play here at the
University of Alabama. I'm thinking, yeah, well, my turn come.
I was behind Don McNeil. He was a great one
six ' one, two hundred pounds prototype NFL cornerback gonna
(10:10):
go in the first round to the Miami Dolphins and
play ten years.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well that's who I'm behind.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So I'm thinking, yeah, I'll play with my turncome.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Coach.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
His next words were, you could play this year. And
I'm like, wow, Coach Bryant, believe I could play this year?
There hasn't been Probably the greatest words ever been spoken
to me was that God loved me. Those were the
(10:42):
next greatest words I tell people. I walked in five nine,
walked out sixty nine when he said you could play
this year. So what he was telling me was you're
not gonna play freshman football.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You're gonna play on the varsity. And boy did I play. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So I had some confidence, but when Coach Bryant said that,
it took.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Me to an entire another level of confidence.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It amazes me to this day how because of that
first initial meeting and then from there on what Coach
Bryant said, I took it as the gospel.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Every word.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I hung on every word he said, and it made
me a great player. I look back and I look
at how I you know, the numbers I put up
as a corner, how I dominated the position, you know,
averaging five interceptions, and that's phenomenal, especially as a corner.
(11:43):
You could see it as a safety. Twenty one interceptions
as a corner. Oh back when it was three yards
and cloud of dust per se. They just ran the
ball pjority of time. And I look at that and
I think, what was it about me? Well, it was
my mindset. Coach Bryant told me I could play, and
the way we were taught to play was with a
(12:05):
spirit of excellence. You don't give up anything, man, I mean,
you don't give up any points. You know, that year
probably one of the greatest defenses that Alabama ever fielded
in all the years they've had a football program, because
that team gave up less than a touchdown a game.
That nineteen seventy nine year, they had five shutouts. So
(12:26):
I was just taught and coached to play the game
with the spirit of excellence. Really, the word is dominate,
So I'm upset if a guy catches an outroute on me.
So that's how I was coached and I played in
that manner. I took that on, that philosophy, and after
four years, I was in All American and had tied
(12:48):
the record in interceptions regular season with sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
We wanted my freshman year.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That was coach Brian's last national championship nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
We had a great team.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Should have warned again and we came up short just
for like some of the leadership.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
The guys.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We had talent, but guys just really didn't have the
character that the seventy to nine team had. That's the
best way for me to put it. We had the ability,
but we just didn't have the character. I did a
blog back in twenty twelve. A friend of mine that
played with me, he was younger than me. He said, Hey,
I think twenty twelve, Coach Brian would have been one
hundred years old. So he said, hey, won't you think
(13:28):
about some of the things Coach Bryant did for you
and right down and I'll talk about it. And so
when I look at it, I go all way back
to that first meeting, Jeremiah, you could play here. Coach
Bryant took ten minutes and he invested in me. From there,
he influenced me. So when he said something I believed
(13:50):
that changed me, that impacted me. I saw that in
my academics, my athletics, spiritually, all those areas I was involved.
And so that influence was there in all three areas.
Coach Bryant come in some meetings. Some men, y'all need
to go to church tomorrow. He tell you where to go,
(14:12):
he till you go. So he influenced me. From there,
an inspiration came how to live life. Coach Bryant lived.
You knew he was passionate about what he was doing.
My senior year eighty two, this time of the year
we had spring ball. So one day we go down.
We get our baskets, gonna change clothes. Get look at
(14:32):
our teneranty. Anytime that our itinerary had s and s
on it, you start praying because it meant stretch and scrimmage.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That's all on our itinerary.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You praying because you knew, oh my goodness, there's no
time limit on this thing. And Coach Bryant was gonna
have your body and your soul that day. So anyway,
that day, so we changed we and buses pull up.
Everybody like, what were getting on these buses for? We
(15:04):
don't we scrimmage right here at the complex? And we
started asking the assistant coaches, don't they don't know, Well,
you mean you don't know you're an assistant coach. No
nobody knew but Coach Brian and the bus drippers. No
assistant coaches didn't know. He took us over the Tuscaloose
County High School. We get off the buses. Coach Briant
(15:24):
walks up, Sir calls everybody up, and he says, first
thing you say. He said, all you coaches go sit
up in the stands. He put all the coaches in
the stands. Coach Bryant coached the offense, the defense, and
the special teams by himself made.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
All the substitutions.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You didn't come out of the scrimmage unless he called
your name. We started at four o'clock. The first group
didn't get through the ten that night lights came on.
So what that six hours later? Literally wet I got
seven eight games of scrimmage plays in in that one scrimmage. Yeah,
(16:07):
without I'm talking about some guys got that many without
before they ever got a break out.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Of the scrimmage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And the next group got through about eleven that night.
So for me, I called I'm in the fourth quarter
of life. Now in my sixties, I saw man at
sixty eight, sixty nine years of age tell his staff
go sit up in the stands. I still have a
passion and a drive and an enthusiasm for what God
(16:35):
called me to do. And so that is imprinted in me,
not just in my mind. And so for you to
known me as a player, back then, as a person,
I was known as a quiet leader.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I just didn't talk much.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And so right before the captains get ready to go
out this game, I've got a strong prompting in my
gut to get up and say something. But I'm scared
because I got to ask Coach Briant. So I'm struggling
with this thing. But the longer I waited, it got
to where I'm like, man, I'm gonna throw up. I
(17:15):
don't get this out. I don't even know what it is.
It's totally impromptu. So I put my hand up real slow.
Coach Briant, I said, Coach, can I say something? He
had on his big old Parker hat. Come up over
that on that jacket. He just nodded, And when he said,
(17:38):
you know, nod gave me a permission, it just flowed.
I started with thanking Coach Briant. It's a coach. I
just want to thank you for everything you've done for me.
So you know, I came here four years ago as
an eighteen year old boy, but tonight I'm gonna leave
as a twenty one year old man. I want to
personally thank you for everything you've done for him. No
(18:00):
way we're gonna lose this game tonight. So if I
got to play this sucker by myself, man, we're gonna win.
And that thing was like it like it was a match.
It lit when it got our guys fired up. What
I love about that when I look back is, you know,
twenty some days later, Coach Brian passes away, and I
just believe the Lord prompted me that in front of
(18:21):
my peers, I would tell my coach thank you for
what he'd done for me. Probably every player in there
should have stood up that night. He said, thank you, coach.
God just prompted me. And after the game, I was
on the standing up there on the stage where he
was getting the trophy Liberty Bot trop I was standing
(18:43):
next to I was getting the MVP trophy and the
announcer was just congratulating him on his career and I
was standing next to him, and he said, oh, my
career was and he put his arm around me. It
was great because men like this And that's how I'll
always remember my last and encounter with Coach Bryant.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And we'd like to thank eighteen nineteen. News for This
Story eighteen nineteen is a multimedia company for the State
of Alabama. Jeremiah Castile doing what almost anybody who played
for Bear Bryant did, which is talk about how Bear
turned him from a boy into a man with high standards,
primarily a spirit of excellence. And as he put it,
(19:31):
he wanted to dominate the other team dominance and that's
how I was coached, he said, And I played that
way and those words of encouragement, because that's what great
coaches will do. They'll hold you to standards, they'll take
it to the mats, or if there are those moments
where they build you up, there are those moments where
they get a vision for you even you don't have.
(19:52):
And this was perhaps Bear Bryant's greatest talent. You can
tell that without Bear Bryant, without Jesus Christ, these are
the two most important beings in his life, and Christ's
first Bear Bryant a close second. The story of Jeremiah
Castile and in the end, stories about Bear Bryant too,
and the Lord here on all American stories
And we continue with our American stories. Jeremiah Castile played
college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide and was on
the last team coached by the legendary Bear Bryant. Castill
was a pallbearer at Bryant's funeral on January twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty three. Let's take a listen to his story.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I was born in nineteen sixty one, Columbus, Georgia. My
father was a World War Two VET, number eight of
nine children. They had about a fourth grade education. I
was born in the project's government housing there at Elizabeth
Kenny Apartments. Then we moved to Phoenix City, Alabama. I
was probably three years old, so around nineteen sixty four
(00:52):
we moved and none of my siblings graduated from high school.
The drugs, the alcohol, the what I saw at home.
Domestic violence was in my house. My mom and dad
fought so at school, That's how I solved my problems
with any of my classmkers was I'm not talking, We're
just going to get right at it. And in my
(01:14):
middle school, during my seventh grade year, I got in
a fight again. I had already been suspended from school
for fighting and I had to take the note home
to my mom for my parents to sign, and it
was a day my mother was sober, so she signed
(01:36):
it and she was handing it back to me, she said, boy,
I'm so disappointed in you.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The Lord used that to grip my heart.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
As a thirteen year old, it just gripped my heart.
I took her back to school, finished the year out
and really realized I needed to change. Oh the little church.
It was Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, little church down the street.
(02:05):
They would do revival every summer. So I have no
interest in you going to church. Any of that hadn't
you know before that, But God drew me based on
I realized I needed to change, and I went. And
so when you came in, the mothers and fathers of
that church asked you where you saved, and I really
(02:27):
didn't know what that meant. They said you must not
be go sit on the front row. So they escorted
me to the front row and they called that the
mourner's bench, and the mothers and fathers of that church
the eldest they just prayed for those people that was
on that front row. And I would say about the
third day of that revival, the Lord saved me. And
what it was as I heard the gospel, the good
(02:49):
news that God loved me and he demonstrated that love
through Jesus Christ on the Cross. The first time of
my life it was communicated to Jeremiah that he was loved.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I would say.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My parents showed me that by providing a place to live, food,
pretty much those basic things, but never communicated verbally that
I was loved. And all the way up to that time,
my mom would get intoxicated and just get violent. So
(03:23):
one day I probably was ten, my mom had a
knife in her hand, kitchen knife, and I wanted to
go play basketball. She was intoxicated. We got an army
in it, and anyway, I ended up with a two
inch scar on my right arm and had to be
taken to the hospital stitches to put in my arm.
(03:44):
So I was dealing with a lot of rejection. So
that third day I heard the gospel and for the
first time, Hey, somebody loved Jeremiah. I tell people, I
walked in that church of Center, walked out of Saint.
That was a radical moment in my life. There wasn't
a lightning and flash, There was a powerful transformation in
(04:08):
my heart. In my inner mand. And the reason I
can say that is because the first person God gave
me a love for was my mother. Now, when God
saved me, he gave me a vision for my life
that in the castile house things could be different and
that he could use me. And so God gave me
a vision to play football. Football really came to be
(04:29):
what I wanted to do in the University of Alabama,
probably my eighth grade year, and so through athletics, I
could get a scholarship, go to school, get an education,
get a job, make enough money to be able to
help my mother get sober, and change the living conditions
of my parents. And that vision disciplined me. I grew
(04:51):
up in a home where drugs and alcohol were sold,
but I've never smoked a marijuana cigarette, I've never drank
a beer. I've never been in toxic That's the power.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Of a dream.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And the dream mattered more than recreational fund that I
could have with teenagers. And so when the Lord save me,
I just became focused on that and I became an
Alabama fan. Also started watching the Coach Bryant Show, and
the vision I'm going to Alabama, I'm gonna go play
(05:23):
football at Alabama. I was five nine, one hundred and
fifty five pounds. It weren't a bunch of people knocking
on the door. I had a breakout year my senior year.
I played both ways, a plate running back, slot, receiver,
and corner and our team actually made it to the playoffs.
We got beat, but it gave schools a chance to
(05:47):
look at me. And I was just small, but I
was very athletic. I could run and jump and was strong.
So I can remember where I got my first letter
from the University of Alabama.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
My coach Wayne Trevor High School.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
He came in one morning in the cafeteria and he
dropped a letter on the table and it had University
of Alabama.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I opened it.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Up and it said that I was being recruited, and man,
I start yelling, screaming.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I ran out the doors to the school yard, yelling,
I told you all you know, because I would tell
people I was going to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I came over in the fall of nineteen seventy
eight met coach Bryant. Coach Jeff Rowsey was the coach
that recruited me, and he and I would talk thirty
years or later and so he told me. He says,
you know when you first met coach Brian and he
looked at you and you'd walked off. He said, Jeff,
(06:46):
you sure about him? He's mighty little, And Coach Rowsy said,
trust me, coach, he can play.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I'm a freshman in nineteen seventy nine and that team
is the returning National Champions, and that team is loaded
as got a lot of guys that's gonna go on
to play in the NFL. So I come in as
a freshman in August, and that first week Coach Bryant
made us scrimmage the varsity. He sicked the dog's host. Man,
(07:21):
I mean that's been as way.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So that first week you scrimmage the returning National Champions.
I can remember like yesterday, and they ran this little
belly play and Steve Whitman was the fullback at that time.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
He hit it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
This was one of these quick hitting plays and I
was backsacked tiny and next thing you know, it's just
me and Steve and Steve was about turn forty five
fifty pound full back and I'm like, man, what am
I gonna do? And I was one of those guys
I wasn't afraid of anything. So I just come up
and laid all one hundred and fifty five pounds on
a pop and it didn't bring him down.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
But I start riding till the posse got there.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
A couple of weeks later, I'm coming in after practice
and I got a pink sticky note on my locker.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And it said, Coach Bryant want to see you. Man.
I am scared as all get out. I'm like, what
have I done? You know? What have I done wrong?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Anyway, I go up Third Florida Coleman Coliseum in his
office and letting the nose was secretary. She says, Coach
be with you in a minute, man, It was a
long minute. The door opens up, she says, you can
go in. And when I walked in, Coach Bryant was
sitting behind his desk and he was smoking those Chesterfield
(08:44):
cigarettes they smoked and didn't have a filter on, and
he was just and he put it in the ash train.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
He just murmured some words.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
He had that old Southern drawl, and I interpreted to
go sit on the couch. He had a black and
white check of the couch in his office. When you
sat down on it, your bottom hit the floor because
he didn't have any legs on it.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So you looking up at.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Him, and you've been listening to Jeremiah Castile tell one
heck of a story about his life.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And by the way, that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Scene of him being called into Bear Bryant's office, and
Bear is a big old man like six ' four,
and I can imagine this short guy's sitting in a
short couch and wondering what the heck is gonna happen next.
When we come back, you'll find out what does happen
next here on our American stories, And we continue with
(09:40):
our American stories and Jeremiah Castile's story. Let's pick up
where he last left off in Coach Bear Bryant's office.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I sit down in the first words Coach Bryant
said to me was you could play here at the
University of Alabama. I'm thinking, yeah, well, my turn come.
I was behind Don McNeil. He was a great one
six ' one, two hundred pounds prototype NFL cornerback gonna
(10:10):
go in the first round to the Miami Dolphins and
play ten years.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well that's who I'm behind.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So I'm thinking, yeah, I'll play with my turncome.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Coach.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
His next words were, you could play this year. And
I'm like, wow, Coach Bryant, believe I could play this year?
There hasn't been Probably the greatest words ever been spoken
to me was that God loved me. Those were the
(10:42):
next greatest words I tell people. I walked in five nine,
walked out sixty nine when he said you could play
this year. So what he was telling me was you're
not gonna play freshman football.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You're gonna play on the varsity. And boy did I play. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So I had some confidence, but when Coach Bryant said that,
it took.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Me to an entire another level of confidence.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It amazes me to this day how because of that
first initial meeting and then from there on what Coach
Bryant said, I took it as the gospel.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Every word.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I hung on every word he said, and it made
me a great player. I look back and I look
at how I you know, the numbers I put up
as a corner, how I dominated the position, you know,
averaging five interceptions, and that's phenomenal, especially as a corner.
(11:43):
You could see it as a safety. Twenty one interceptions
as a corner. Oh back when it was three yards
and cloud of dust per se. They just ran the
ball pjority of time. And I look at that and
I think, what was it about me? Well, it was
my mindset. Coach Bryant told me I could play, and
the way we were taught to play was with a
(12:05):
spirit of excellence. You don't give up anything, man, I mean,
you don't give up any points. You know, that year
probably one of the greatest defenses that Alabama ever fielded
in all the years they've had a football program, because
that team gave up less than a touchdown a game.
That nineteen seventy nine year, they had five shutouts. So
(12:26):
I was just taught and coached to play the game
with the spirit of excellence. Really, the word is dominate,
So I'm upset if a guy catches an outroute on me.
So that's how I was coached and I played in
that manner. I took that on, that philosophy, and after
four years, I was in All American and had tied
(12:48):
the record in interceptions regular season with sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
We wanted my freshman year.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That was coach Brian's last national championship nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
We had a great team.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Should have warned again and we came up short just
for like some of the leadership.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
The guys.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We had talent, but guys just really didn't have the
character that the seventy to nine team had. That's the
best way for me to put it. We had the ability,
but we just didn't have the character. I did a
blog back in twenty twelve. A friend of mine that
played with me, he was younger than me. He said, Hey,
I think twenty twelve, Coach Brian would have been one
hundred years old. So he said, hey, won't you think
(13:28):
about some of the things Coach Bryant did for you
and right down and I'll talk about it. And so
when I look at it, I go all way back
to that first meeting, Jeremiah, you could play here. Coach
Bryant took ten minutes and he invested in me. From there,
he influenced me. So when he said something I believed
(13:50):
that changed me, that impacted me. I saw that in
my academics, my athletics, spiritually, all those areas I was involved.
And so that influence was there in all three areas.
Coach Bryant come in some meetings. Some men, y'all need
to go to church tomorrow. He tell you where to go,
(14:12):
he till you go. So he influenced me. From there,
an inspiration came how to live life. Coach Bryant lived.
You knew he was passionate about what he was doing.
My senior year eighty two, this time of the year
we had spring ball. So one day we go down.
We get our baskets, gonna change clothes. Get look at
(14:32):
our teneranty. Anytime that our itinerary had s and s
on it, you start praying because it meant stretch and scrimmage.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That's all on our itinerary.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You praying because you knew, oh my goodness, there's no
time limit on this thing. And Coach Bryant was gonna
have your body and your soul that day. So anyway,
that day, so we changed we and buses pull up.
Everybody like, what were getting on these buses for? We
(15:04):
don't we scrimmage right here at the complex? And we
started asking the assistant coaches, don't they don't know, Well,
you mean you don't know you're an assistant coach. No
nobody knew but Coach Brian and the bus drippers. No
assistant coaches didn't know. He took us over the Tuscaloose
County High School. We get off the buses. Coach Briant
(15:24):
walks up, Sir calls everybody up, and he says, first
thing you say. He said, all you coaches go sit
up in the stands. He put all the coaches in
the stands. Coach Bryant coached the offense, the defense, and
the special teams by himself made.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
All the substitutions.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
You didn't come out of the scrimmage unless he called
your name. We started at four o'clock. The first group
didn't get through the ten that night lights came on.
So what that six hours later? Literally wet I got
seven eight games of scrimmage plays in in that one scrimmage. Yeah,
(16:07):
without I'm talking about some guys got that many without
before they ever got a break out.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Of the scrimmage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And the next group got through about eleven that night.
So for me, I called I'm in the fourth quarter
of life. Now in my sixties, I saw man at
sixty eight, sixty nine years of age tell his staff
go sit up in the stands. I still have a
passion and a drive and an enthusiasm for what God
(16:35):
called me to do. And so that is imprinted in me,
not just in my mind. And so for you to
known me as a player, back then, as a person,
I was known as a quiet leader.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I just didn't talk much.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And so right before the captains get ready to go
out this game, I've got a strong prompting in my
gut to get up and say something. But I'm scared
because I got to ask Coach Briant. So I'm struggling
with this thing. But the longer I waited, it got
to where I'm like, man, I'm gonna throw up. I
(17:15):
don't get this out. I don't even know what it is.
It's totally impromptu. So I put my hand up real slow.
Coach Briant, I said, Coach, can I say something? He
had on his big old Parker hat. Come up over
that on that jacket. He just nodded, And when he said,
(17:38):
you know, nod gave me a permission, it just flowed.
I started with thanking Coach Briant. It's a coach. I
just want to thank you for everything you've done for me.
So you know, I came here four years ago as
an eighteen year old boy, but tonight I'm gonna leave
as a twenty one year old man. I want to
personally thank you for everything you've done for him. No
(18:00):
way we're gonna lose this game tonight. So if I
got to play this sucker by myself, man, we're gonna win.
And that thing was like it like it was a match.
It lit when it got our guys fired up. What
I love about that when I look back is, you know,
twenty some days later, Coach Brian passes away, and I
just believe the Lord prompted me that in front of
(18:21):
my peers, I would tell my coach thank you for
what he'd done for me. Probably every player in there
should have stood up that night. He said, thank you, coach.
God just prompted me. And after the game, I was
on the standing up there on the stage where he
was getting the trophy Liberty Bot trop I was standing
(18:43):
next to I was getting the MVP trophy and the
announcer was just congratulating him on his career and I
was standing next to him, and he said, oh, my
career was and he put his arm around me. It
was great because men like this And that's how I'll
always remember my last and encounter with Coach Bryant.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And we'd like to thank eighteen nineteen. News for This
Story eighteen nineteen is a multimedia company for the State
of Alabama. Jeremiah Castile doing what almost anybody who played
for Bear Bryant did, which is talk about how Bear
turned him from a boy into a man with high standards,
primarily a spirit of excellence. And as he put it,
(19:31):
he wanted to dominate the other team dominance and that's
how I was coached, he said, And I played that
way and those words of encouragement, because that's what great
coaches will do. They'll hold you to standards, they'll take
it to the mats, or if there are those moments
where they build you up, there are those moments where
they get a vision for you even you don't have.
(19:52):
And this was perhaps Bear Bryant's greatest talent. You can
tell that without Bear Bryant, without Jesus Christ, these are
the two most important beings in his life, and Christ's
first Bear Bryant a close second. The story of Jeremiah
Castile and in the end, stories about Bear Bryant too,
and the Lord here on all American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.