Blue Bombers kicker Castillo is troubled by shift in U.S.

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Published Sep 29, 2025 • 4 minute read

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Kicker Sergio Castillo hustles off the field at Winnipeg Blue Bombers practice on July 2, 2024. Photo by KEVIN KING /Winnipeg SunArticle content

Growing up in a border town was pretty cool, I always thought. We’d pedal our bikes across the line into the U.S. to use the swimming pool in the neighbouring town or get a Dr. Pepper, two things we couldn’t do in Gretna, Man., at the time.

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It was a little different for Sergio Castillo.

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The Winnipeg Blue Bombers kicker was born in La Joya, Texas, located alongside the border with Mexico.

Being the son of Mexican parents thrust him into an environment most of us can’t fathom.

“Look at me, look at my colour,” Castillo said, showing me the back of his hand. “Brown. Growing up, you’d be playing soccer in the park and border patrol would show up.”

Young Sergio would tell his buddies to take off and let him risk being caught.

“I’ll stay in the back in case they catch us,” he’d tell them. “Because I’m from here. It was just because of your colour, and that’s just the way it is. When we cross the border I make my cousins drive, because they’re more white complexions than me. It’s the world that we live in.”

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For Mexican-Americans like Castillo, that world has darkened of late.

With a son of his own now, he can’t help but worry.

The 34-year-old was taking his wife and son back home to Texas this week, as the Bombers enjoy a break in their schedule.

Before he left, we spoke about the shift that has seen agents from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) sweep through communities, looking for and detaining immigrants deemed illegal and breaking up families in the process.

“That’s the scary thing,” Castillo said. “You hear through friends and family. And it’s just sad. Even myself. It’s just because of my colour I can be stopped. Which is scary.”

In his ninth year in the CFL, Castillo has earned a reputation as one of the biggest legs in league history.

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The product of West Texas A&M University shares the CFL record for the longest field goal, at 63 yards. He’s also the first to make more than one from 60 and out.

And while he’s not No. 1 for accuracy, he doesn’t lean particularly left or right, politically.

“I’m not much into politics,” he said. “I’m more: ‘Hey, why don’t we just get together. Let’s find a common ground.’ What I’ve been through in the past, what my family has been through because of my background, my colour, because my last name’s Castillo – people don’t know the struggle that people go through because of their colour, their background.”

That struggle wasn’t offset by many role models when Castillo was young. Pro football players who looked like him were few and far between.

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“I remember looking for somebody that was brown in this platform,” he said. “Very hard to find.”

That has changed a little over the last 10 to 15 years.

Now that Castillo has a platform of his own, even if it’s not as big as the one he briefly held with the New York Jets in 2020, he takes to heart his position as someone Mexican-American kids might look up to.

“There’s still kids that reach out to me,” he said. “It’s a responsibility I take with pride. So now we’re planting the seed. You see someone on TV that has your same ethnicity and colour, it gives a little bit of pride, a little bit of hope, ‘I can do it.’ And that’s what I hope I give to my son.”

Castillo has worn the mantle of his heritage through eight career CFL stops, including three stints with the Bombers, plus another two in the NFL and one in the XFL.

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Seems he’s always wearing a smile, too. A locker-room joker, he’s as popular as anyone.

“One of the great people in the world,” teammate and punter Jamieson Sheahan called him.

When he hits the field in Winnipeg, though, he’s dead-serious. He’s not just kicking for his teammates and the 32,000-plus in the stands, he’s kicking for a bigger audience, a bigger world.

“My family did a lot of sacrifices for me to be in the position that I’m at. Me being first-generation, first-born in the States – I’m a proud Mexican, and American. I represent both sides. I’m glad to have been born in the United States. But I’m deeply rooted in the Mexican heritage. I don’t forget my colour. I have a cactus in my face – look at me.”

The “both sides” Castillo refers to have come together in him. But they appear to be drifting apart in his country.

While splitting the uprights is his job, he hates to see the growing split in society.

“I don’t know where it’s going,” he said. “Uncertainty. That’s where we’re at. Let’s put our agendas aside. Let’s treat humans right.”

paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca

X: @friesensunmedia

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Blue Bombers kicker Castillo is troubled by shift in U.S.

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