Tag Archives: Tatnall School

Castagno: a 2026 Hall of Fame Inductee

10 Friday Apr 2026

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Salesianum School and University of Delaware standout and longtime award-winning Tatnall School track and cross-country coach Pat Castagno will be among ten inductees into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame (HOF) this spring. An excerpt from the HOF announcement follows:

For 25 years, Patrick Castagno has coached Tatnall School track and field and cross-country teams to statewide dominance and national prominence.

Castagno joined the Tatnall faculty in 2001 and reinvigorated the cross country and track programs. Since then, the Hornets have won 62 state championships, with 273 individual and relay titles. Eight Hornets teams and five individual runners have qualified for the Nike Cross Country Nationals.

Castagno has been named U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association Coach of the Year five times and Delaware Coach of the Year 15 times.

Nearly 80 of his athletes have competed at the college level, including an NCAA champion and [fellow HOF] inductee, Juliet Bottorff.

One of Castagno’s former Tatnall great runners, CRR Sam Parsons, who also had a successful runner career both in college at North Carolina State and then on the pro circuit, went on to become Delaware’s first sub-four miler and the first person to break the four-minute-mile barrier on Delaware soil.

A successful college runner himself, Castagno was coached at the University of Delaware by another Delaware Sports Hall of Famer, CRR Jim Fischer.

The quest for the 4-minute mile in Delaware

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by in Upcoming Events

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The Delaware Mile Challenge

On the evening of Saturday, April 9, elite milers will gather along with others who like the challenge of an open track mile for a set of races at the Tatnall School track. The four-minute mile barrier has never been broken in Delaware, though there have been at least two young Delawarean men who have achieved that feat recently, although not on First State soil. The fastest mile ever clocked in Delaware was a 4:01.1, way back in 1972.

photo of Sam Parsons making eye contact with an Ethiopian competitor

First and foremost, CRR Sam Parsons, the Newark native and Tatnall alum who has eclipsed the mark a couple times within the past few years, will be ready to give it a go. Since his successful collegiate career at NC State, Parsons has been training professionally with Tinman Elite out of Boulder, Colo., and has had some success at middle distances representing Germany (his mother, CRR Christina Parsons, is German-born) internationally. His fastest (non-track) mile is 3:55.00.

News Journal photo of Kieran Tuntivate

Then there’s Kieran Tuntivate, a Charter School of Wilmington grad who recently completed his college running at Harvard, who will join Parsons to try to smash through the barrier in his home state. Tuntivate has recently been running internationally for Thailand, from where his father hails. His fastest outdoor mile is 3:57.87. Former Harvard runner and CRR Bruce Weber calls Tuntivate “the best Harvard distance runner ever.”

There will be a few other entrants who’ve also broken four minutes in the mile.

The event, which is open to all, is being organized by University of Delaware running alum Pat Castagno, who is Tatnall’s track and field coach.

The schedule will be as follows:

5:00 p.m. – middle school boys and girls
5:15 p.m – community mile for kids 11-and-under, who may be accompanied by parents
5:30 p.m – high school girls mile
6:15 p.m – high school boys mile
7:00 p.m. – open mile, for those 18 to 39 or others not on high school team rosters
7:20 p.m. – women 40-and-over
7:40 p.m. – men 40-and-over
8:20 p.m. – elite women
8:40 p.m. – elite men

Race registration for non-high school runners is $10 per runner by April 7 and includes a race shirt. Admission cost for spectators is $5.

Delaware Crimson?

15 Friday Oct 2021

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photo of Sam Parsons with Harvard runners

Last month, CRR Sam Parsons ventured to Cambridge, Mass., and hooked up with the Harvard University men’s running team. So, why was the Newark native and Tatnall School and NC State grad with the Crimson? Well, it probably had something to do with Harvard’s recent (and not-so-recent) Delaware connection.

In the above photo (submitted by CRR George Parsons, Sam’s dad), Parsons is kneeling, front and center in the gray hat and bright red shirt. Behind him and to his left, sans shirt, is Andrew Avila, a Harvard sophomore from Newark, who ran for the Charter School of Wilmington.

Parsons, a professional runner with Boulder, Colo.–based Tinman Elite, knows former Harvard runner and Charter School of Wilmington standout Kieran Tuntivate (not in the photo), who now runs for the Bowerman Track Club in Portland, Ore. No doubt Parsons and Tuntivate had kept in touch while Tuntivate was running for the Crimson.

photo of Bruce Weber
1984 photo of Harvard runners

CRR Bruce Weber, a Harvard alumnus and local ambassador for the school, helped Tuntivate familiarlize himself with Harvard and its running program several years ago as he was making up his mind where to do his college running. Weber submitted his own archival tribute to the Crimson runners of yore, of whom he was a key player when he was an undergrad. In this photo from 1984, Weber, who is Dean of the Lerner School of Business at the University of Delaware, is second from the right.

Nice Blue Hen synergy, eh?