Note: this is the first in a two-part series on two former Aggie student-athletes who now, as husband and wife, contribute as teachers in the Sacramento area.
Their UC Davis careers shared much in common. From 2013 through 2017, Cameron Olson earned All-Big West Conference recognition for the baseball team, while Christa Castello garnered similar honors – four times, in fact – for the Aggie softball team right down the road. Both graduated in 2017 with degrees in human development.
Olson arrived at UC Davis from River Valley High School, a highly rated public school in Yuba City. Castello hailed from Carondelet High, an esteemed private Catholic prep school in Concord. Olson was a middle-of-the-order power hitter, Castello hit for high averages at the top of the lineup card. Olson entered the program as an accomplished catcher, but injuries forced him to pivot to designated hitter and first base. Castello played every out of every game at shortstop, was sidelined by an injury, yet returned as the starting shortstop for all 54 games as a senior.
When they got married, they took each other's family names: Cameron is now Cameron Castello-Olson while Christa is now Christa Castello-Olson. And professionally, both followed family traditions by entering the world of teaching: Cameron at California Middle School in Sacramento, Christa at White Rock Elementary in Rancho Cordova.
Yet even that common destination came at the end of divergent journeys.
Christa aspired to become a teacher before she even entered UC Davis. She majored in human development accordingly, then navigated through her undergraduate curriculum with a credential program in mind. Her father Matt taught for 27 years at De La Salle High School (brother school to Carondelet); in fact, he retired from the profession this summer. However, it was a community service experience early on at Carondelet that set teaching as a career target for Christa. "I just happened to get selected to volunteer in a classroom," she said. "It was a wonderful experience that kind of put me on my path."
On the other hand, Cameron did not have career aspirations in mind during his undergraduate years. Three members of his family are teachers, with his aunt and grandmother lending their expertise to special education. Cameron even gained an early taste of the job by giving a health presentation for his mother Stephanie's classroom, but his mind remained with baseball. When persistent injuries – including three separate knee surgeries – took professional ball out of the horizon, he began to feel anxiety over what he wanted to do with his life.
"This is why it's really awesome that you have the Aggie EVO program to help student-athletes," said Cameron, "because I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do." Indeed, his situation is an example of why EVO came to be. The department's outcomes advisors provide resources and skills to help student-athletes clarify their futures, allowing them to better concentrate on school and sport.
Fortunately, both Cameron and Christa teamed up in an internship at Fred T. Korematsu Elementary, a relatively new school in Davis' Mace Ranch neighborhood. "I was able to form this amazing bond with a student who had severe emotional disabilities, and the teacher was really impressed at how we built this relationship," Cameron recalled. "It got me to think that teaching could be something I'm interested in."
By the time they graduated in June of 2017, Christa was set on her career path, and her route to teaching was a more "traditional" one: she enrolled in UC Davis' School of Education that fall to earn her credential. This required an arduous schedule: a full day working as a student teacher in the Robla School District, followed by classes that went well into the evenings. Furthermore, this amounts to half of a two-year program: after earning her credential in that first year, Christa worked her first year at White Rock while completing her master's degree at UC Davis.
Fortunately, her experience as a student-athlete prepared her for such rigors.
"A lot of students really struggled with that, because they weren't used to having such a heavy load," said Christa. "We did that every day, and top of that, we had homework and research projects and assignments. For me, it just segued from being an athlete to going through a short and strenuous credential program. It's definitely an advantage for athletes who want to go through a traditional credential program. Being an athlete really prepares you."
Oddly, the off-field injury Christa sustained at the start of her fourth year at UC Davis actually worked to her advantage: being forced to stretch her academic plan into a fifth year also enabled her to add two minors. Even then, Christa had to take two more online courses during the summer before she could begin the credential program.
"I want future teachers to know that each program has different requirements," Christa said. "You definitely want to check those requirements prior to applying, even two years prior."
Christa's more traditional route to a credential differs quite starkly from the alternate route taken by her future husband (she and Cameron got married in October 2019). Despite the positive experience at Korematsu, Cameron initially worked for a friend's construction company, but soon learned it was not the direction he wanted. He returned to the classroom as a paraeducator at Davis' Birch Lane Elementary, then through Christa, learned of an internship program with the Sacramento County Office of Education.
Cameron successfully applied for the SCOE program, which consisted of a three-month "pre-service" to learn the basics of teaching, then followed with full-time work at a school while completing the required courses by the CTC (California Commission on Teacher Credentialing). Cameron completed his credential last spring, and now enters the 2020-21 school year as a full-fledged teacher.
If this sounds familiar, it should: Preston Jackson, an Aggie football legend and the subject of a recent EVO feature, entered a similar internship program to earn his teaching credential. Not only that, but Cameron got hired at Jackson's school – California Middle – with Jackson on the actual hiring committee. The two former Aggie athletes did not know each other, but they shared one key person in common: UC Davis head baseball coach Matt Vaughn was a fellow student-athlete when Jackson roamed the halls of Hickey Gym in the early 1990s.
"As a friend of mine pointed out to me," said Jackson, "it's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you. When I saw Cameron's application, the first thing I did was I called Matt Vaughn. Matt raved about him. And he wasn't wrong: everything Matt said was the absolute truth."
Make no mistake, Jackson and his Cal Middle colleagues did not merely hire Cameron because of the UC Davis name on the degree. The former baseball standout prepared meticulously for the interview, learning everything he could about the school, and that homework showed up in the interview. Furthermore, Cameron drew from his family's experience with special education, and incorporated it into his story.
"'Confidence' is probably the best way I can describe his interview," Jackson said. "Everything about him came off that he was ready for this. We probably interviewed 10-12 people that day and he was head and shoulders above everyone else. Even though he had absolutely no teaching experience whatsoever, didn't have a teaching credential, he interviewed better than some people who came in with 10, 15, 20 years of experience."
And just as Christa credits her softball experience for preparing her for graduate school, Cameron also gives a nod to his baseball experience for priming him for the world of work, particularly when it comes to areas of leadership and time management. Teaching special education adds hours to the workload, too, while his credential coursework occupied the weekends – familiar terrain for a college student-athlete.
"Preston and I were joking about how people give him a hard time for having too much on his plate," said Cameron. "His response was 'I was a student-athlete, this is nothing.' It's totally true. Balancing my Saturday classes with being a full-time teacher was hard, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was very similar to having to balance baseball and classes at Davis."
Cameron and Christa jointly credit sports for teaching them one quality: adaptability. Athletes learn to shift on the fly, constantly making decisions in an instant. They learn to adjust quickly to the wants and needs of differing personalities. This trait became especially valuable when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close last spring. The new school year starts in mid-August for Christa, and the first week of September for Cameron. Baseball and softball may famously have no clock, but the return to the 2020-21 school year certainly has a rapid countdown for all educators.
NEXT: In the second part of this series, we will learn of the challenges facing all educators – through the eyes of these former Aggie standouts turned young teachers.
