Jenn Castro: Freshman superfan shows intense school spirit, love for everything SU

Jenn Castro spent eight hours during her first day at Syracuse University decorating her dorm room in Haven Hall. Her room decorations included orange lights, pillows and bed sheets and posters of Jim Boeheim and the SU men’s basketball team.

And the decorations put up during that time don’t even account for half of the current decorations that can be found on the floor, walls and ceiling of her room.

Castro applied to 12 different colleges and universities, mostly in the Boston area where she is from, before she chose to go to SU. She said it “was definitely the school spirit that brought (her) here.”

She said when she visited the campus for an accepted students’ spring reception in 2014, she fell in love with the university — especially the Carrier Dome — instantly.

“This is the only school that when I opened (the acceptance letter), I got the chills,” said Castro, a freshman marketing management and advertising dual major. “I knew that was kind of a deciding factor.”

Staci Downing, Castro’s roommate, said the two of them had planned to decorate their room in Haven with SU items before moving in, but Castro went “above and beyond with it.”

Castro and Downing found each other on Facebook. They met in person for the first time on an accepted students’ day, where they decided to request each other as roommates. Downing said they both love sports and played softball in high school, so they had a lot in common. She added that the two of them joked that they were twins.

“I love it even though there’s a ton of orange in our room,” said Downing, a freshman sport management major. “It just shows how much she loves Syracuse. Everyone who comes to visit is like ‘Oh my god, this is incredible.’”

Last fall, Castro went a few hours early to the Carrier Dome for her first football game just to watch the pregame and the players warm up. She said since she knew a few of the football players, she gave them pep talks via text messages before the game started.

Since then, Castro has never missed a home football game. And she made it to every home basketball game except for one because she had an exam the following day.

Even Castro’s case of pneumonia didn’t stop her from attending the SU men’s basketball game versus Duke University on Feb. 14.

“When I woke up, I didn’t think I could go to this game,” Castro said. “I was so sick, but I said to myself, ‘This only happens four times in my life.’”

She stood outside the Carrier Dome, wrapped in blankets from 10 a.m. to around 2 p.m. when the doors opened. Despite her illness, Castro — who sat in the third row for the game — was bursting with excitement.

Castro said later that day, she went home to Boston, Massachusetts, where she went to an urgent care facility.

But to her, spending 12 hours near the Dome that day was “totally worth it.”

So, when the SU men’s basketball team was sanctioned by the NCAA, Castro struggled to come to terms with the situation.

“It killed me inside, just like sanction after sanction,” Castro said. “SportsCenter, Twitter, everything just blew up over the past couple months, and it’s just been so hard.”

Castro’s roommate said she wasn’t with Castro when the sanctions dropped. But Downing knew Castro was upset because she was texting, making phone calls, sending Snapchats, and tweeting about the breaking news. Downing said it was kind of fun to watch Castro’s reaction to the whole thing.

“Even people back home were messaging me and asking how I was doing and I just said ‘I don’t know,’” Castro said. “This is more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’ve been through sports injuries in high school, but this is just a devastating blow.”

Castro added that no matter what happens, she will support SU and its sports teams.

Noah Pietraszewski, a freshman mechanical engineering major, recalled when he and Castro were on Marshall Street and Castro was asked to be interviewed about the NCAA sanctions.

“I knew she was holding back tears during (the interview),” Pietraszewski said. “She’s just so passionate, especially about basketball.”

Kelsey Fowler, one of Castro’s Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters, said when she first met Castro she thought she was a “serious lunatic” because of her SU school spirit.

“All of her pictures she is in SU gear,” said Fowler, a sophomore political science and geography dual major. “She’s an SU lunatic, but I love her for it. She perfectly embodies everything that makes up an SU fan.”