Maybe Arizona GymCats freshman Jessica Castles should have known her experience in NCAA gymnastics was not going to be a typical one. When she took her unofficial visit to Arizona in 2019, it wasn’t at all what gymnastics head coach John Court had described.
“The first time I came here, John promised me warm weather,” Castles said. “And it snowed that day.”
Just shy of two years later, she was sitting in McKale Center as a University of Arizona student-athlete answering questions about another snowy day in the Old Pueblo. Not to mention those questions about life as a student-athlete over 5,000 miles from home during a pandemic.