Jeff Casteel Week continues
October 21, 2010 by Mike Casazza
Oh, the irony. One person asks a question about the relative anonymity of Jeff Casteel — entirely legit, by the way — and then the indirect result is more favorable commentary written about WVU’s defensive coordinator than at any other one point I can recall in his now 10 seasons with the team.
So, in a way, the media acts as his non-existent agent.
That said, the way he’s coached, the way he’s conducted his professional affairs and the way he’s neither sought or really even avoided the attention does make his spotlight somewhat deserved this week.
Even though he wants nothing to do with it.
Jeff Casteel likely will never read this newspaper story.
First, he doesn’t have much idle time.
Second, it isn’t in his nature.
Casteel, in his ninth season as the defensive coordinator at West Virginia, isn’t part of the new-guard of college football coordinators. He doesn’t want the network television cameras to zoom in on him, he doesn’t need the announcers to talk about the wonderful job he does. He isn’t angling for a promotion, the limelight or bushels of praise.
He just wants to coach football.
Casteel, 48, is more comfortable in front of a dry-eraser board diagraming a blitz out of his signature 3-3-5 defense than he is talking to a mob of reporters huddled around him.
“I don’t concern myself with all that, that’s what people end up writing about,” Casteel said of the spotlight that comes with his unit’s success. “I just try to do a good job, and that’s the best I can do. I don’t worry about whether my name is in the paper or not. You are going to be a good coach [dependent on] whether you have good players; I learned that a long time ago.”