Kastrup has had long journey to CCCC
On May 5th, 2021, Devin Kastrup was hired as the men's basketball coach at Cloud County Community College(CCCC). He is only the sixth head coach in the program's 55-year history.
"This is an opportunity that I've always wanted," Kastrup said. "To be at a place at such a high level as the Jayhawk Conference, and to work with young men who are at this high of a level. There is a support system here that wants to be successful."
Kastrup has had a long journey to CCCC, traveling the world in his basketball career. Raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he found a passion for basketball at an early age. "Both my parents are deaf. Sign language was my first language. My step-dad was the basketball coach at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind. I was around the game at an early age."
Kastrup's basketball aspirations were certainly helped by the fact that he grew tall, quickly. "I exploded in the 7th grade," he said with a laugh. "By the time I was a freshman in high school I was 6' 3". My sophomore year, I was 6' 7".
He began his college basketball career at Southwestern Iowa Community College, 2011-13, where he was the team captain and earned all-conference honors. He then transferred to Western Colorado University, where he led the Mountaineers in rebounds, blocked shots, and three-point field goal percentage.
"I wasn't that athletically overpowering," Kastrup recalled. "I always had the skills, but I never had any specialized training. That's something I focus on now as a coach. I was - and still am - very competitive."
For Kastrup, that competitiveness carried over into the classroom. At Western Colorado, he earned a bachelor's degree in exercise science and sports science, and then earned his master's degree from Adams State University in Colorado.
After college, Kastrup played professionally for three seasons in Spain and China. "In Spain, I got really lucky with the club I signed with. It was a great club, and I loved the Latin culture. My apartment was 50 yards from the beach. Everything revolved around basketball. I had fulfilled a dream. My whole focus was doing my job as a pro. Life was really good. I'm very thankful for my time there."
In his second season playing pro ball in Spain, Kastrup tore the ACL in his knee. It was a life-altering moment for him. "I held out hope that the injury wasn't bad. But as soon as it happened I knew my season was over."
Kastrup connected with a former coach who was at the University of Maine-Presque Isle. While he rehabbed his knee he worked with the team, getting a taste of coaching.
After his knee healed, Kastrup toured China with a pro team for two months. "That was a whole different experience. We'd be staying in a 5-star hotel, and we would be the only people there. It was like a ghost city. Ninety-percent of the city was uninhabited. There were these perfectly manicured streets and LED lights everywhere, and then two blocks from the hotel there would be streets piled with rubble."
In Spain, Kastrup quickly adapted to the culture and learned to speak the language. He never felt that comfortable in China. "In Spain you could converse with people. In China, you might as well have been from another planet. We always had translators with us; we were watched everywhere we went. They take their basketball very seriously there. It's a different style of game."
Kastrup quickly learned that, during a game, any kind of confrontation on the court was forbidden. "Sometimes things get heated during a game. Tempers flare. There was some shoving on the court, and the crowd just started booing. Then the military ran on the court with their guns. It was really weird."
All of Kastrup's determination and drive to succeed was still in place, but his body was failing him. The knee just was not the same. He knew it was time to move on to his second major goal in life: coaching. "Whether I played pro ball one year or ten years, I had accomplished one of my lifelong dreams. I was ready to move on to my next career as a coach."
In the spring of 2017, Kastrup returned to the United States and joined the coaching staff at the University of Maine-Presque Isle for the second half of their season. Kastrup was then hired as the assistant men's basketball coach at his alma mater, Western Colorado University. In 2017-18, he helped guide the program to more than double their wins from the previous year, and the Mountaineers made the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) playoffs for the first time in five seasons.
In 2019, Kastrup was hired as the head coach of the Southwestern Iowa Community College Spartans. The team had won only three games in the previous season. Kastrup led the Spartans to 23 wins in two seasons and a 2021 NJCAA Region XI Championship game appearance.
The Spartans would finish 11th nationally in scoring defense, 20th nationally in field goal percentage defense, third nationally in made three-point field goals, and 24th nationally in free throw percentage. Three players from the 2020-21 squad would be recognized on the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) All-Region Teams for SWCC.
In May of this year, Kastrup accepted the head coaching job at CCCC. He brings with him the knowledge, world experience, and total commitment to a sport he loves. Off the court, Kastrup is an easygoing, quick-with-a-smile guy. On the court, he is a tower of intensity. "When I get in between the lines a switch gets flipped," he admits. "I can be an intense guy."
Though Kastrup stands 6' 8" tall, he moves with the confident agility of an athlete who has performed on the world stage. One of his first orders of business at CCCC is to remake the mentality of a program that struggled for wins in the last few years. "We're a freshman-heavy team, so we're going to establish our identity in our conference, and establish ourselves as a team. We're going to play together and share the ball. Selfish basketball won't be tolerated here. We may not be the most talented team on the court, but we are going to be toughest."
Kastrup is schooling his athletes on his approach to defense: tough, hard-nosed, fight for every possession. "Some of our opponents have very high profiles. If we can get stops on defense, we will be in every game. I want us to be the toughest team on the court."
As a coach, Kastrup has one deceptively simple goal in mind: push the program forward. Grow every year. "I'm very competitive, so I've got to remind myself to patient with these young guys. But it's also my job to prepare them for life at the next level, and for life after their basketball days are over. I take that part of my job very seriously."
To instill that discipline, Kastrup holds his student/athletes to a high standard. Every day is a structured environment. The first practice is at 6 a.m. In the classroom, his basketball players are required to sit in the first two rows. Kastrup and his coaches check the classes throughout the day, every day, to make sure his players are attending. "I want them to learn good habits here so they can have success at a four-year college and then life after basketball," he said.
Kastrup's coaching philosophy - and philosophy of life - is heavily influenced by three of his former coaches: Larry Mangino, Mike Holmes, and Joe Aldaz.
Mangino has a 29-year coaching legacy and is currently an assistant basketball coach and the director of player development at the storied University of Virginia. Holmes is now the athletic director at Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Aldaz is an Air Force veteran and was the women's basketball coach and athletic director at the Air Force Prepatory.
"Aldaz taught me how to compete and have discipline in my daily life," Kastrup said. "Mangino taught me about team-oriented offensive discipline. From Holmes I learned how to be a hard-nosed opponent on defense. From all of them I learned how to win even when you're not the best team on the court that day, and that's the kind of attitude I want to instill in the young men here."
Kastrup and his fiancee Anna - they're getting married on December 22 - have made Concordia their home. He knows it will take time to turn things around at CCCC, but he is committed to the job. "We've got a lot of work to do here. Right now, success for us is to play hard every game. That's how I'm going to grade our first season. I promise the fans that this team will compete, and compete hard."
The CCCC Thunderbirds will open their season November 1, at North Platte.