Everything was going according to plan for former Northwestern defensive tackle Luis Castillo on Saturday.

At 2 p.m., Castillo returned home from watching his former NU teammates on their final day of spring practices, just as he had planned. The 6-foot-4, 305-pound lineman had gone to the practice because he said it would help make the day seem not so long.

Castillo also had told all of his friends not to call his cell phone so that the line would be open for NFL teams to reach him. So as he sat in his apartment surrounded by family and friends, clutching his cell phone which he had turned on to the vibrate setting, he tried not to be nervous. But when the phone rang the first three times and each time it was a friend’s voice was on the other line, Castillo’s nerves showed through.

“Every time I felt it (vibrate), I’d be so excited, and it’d be one of my friends, and I’d be like ‘Ahhh! Don’t call me,'” Castillo said.

But when the San Diego Chargers came on to the clock at pick No. 28, Castillo’s phone buzzed again, and this time it wasn’t a friend.

“I saw the call, it was a number I didn’t recognize and I picked it up,” Castillo said. “It was the (Chargers’) director of college scouting, he told me they were going to pick me (and) put me through to the general manager, (San Diego head coach) Marty Schottenheimer and the owner.

“(Schottenheimer) pretty much said, ‘You’re a great guy, we’d love to have you,’ and he told me about where they were going to think about putting me. It was very brief, very congratulatory.”

After hanging up the phone, Castillo sat and watched the seconds tick off the clock on the TV in front of him. He had heard rumors of teams calling their pick but then getting a trade offer afterwards and accepting it, so he didn’t tell his family anything about the phone call.

But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue came onto the stage and announced that Castillo was the Chargers’ pick.

“The place just exploded,” Castillo said. “With all of the ups and downs I’ve had in the last couple of days, to have it culminate with going to a great team and a great city and being in the first round, it’s just an unbelievable experience.”

The biggest down for Castillo in the draft process came when his drug test from the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis came back positive for androstenedione, which is classified as a steroid by the NFL drug policy. After Castillo ran a 4.79 40-yard dash and did 32 bench-press repetitions of 225 pounds at the combine, he had seen his draft stock soar. But steroid use resulted in the questioning of his numbers.

After the pick was made, several ESPN draft analysts and current NFL players expressed their disagreement with the pick.

New England linebacker Mike Vrabel went as far as to call Castillo a “cheater” on the air, and said he didn’t deserve to be picked in the first round.

Though Castillo had responded to the positive test immediately, sending out a letter to all 32 NFL teams explaining why he had decided to take the andro, he hadn’t yet commented publicly on the issue.

So when reporters asked why he had taken steroids, Castillo was ready to explain himself again, this time to the public.

“I was getting frustrated, to be honest,” Castillo told the reporters. “It was a situation where it was still January, I was having a hard time getting back to the level I’ve always known I’ve been at. Not being able to work out the way I wanted to and prepare the way I wanted to for this, the biggest opportunity of my life, I got scared. I made a huge mistake.”

The Chargers’ front office also backed Castillo in the call.

Officials said a one-time mistake should not be used to judge a person’s character, and they voiced their confidence in Castillo as a player and as a person.

While Castillo said he knows that everyone will have their own opinion of him, he also said he hopes he will be able to prove them wrong over his career and he is just looking forward to “getting back to football.”

“To go to a team that was 12-4, competing for a Super Bowl, you couldn’t ask for anything better,” Castillo said. “Especially to go to a city like San Diego that has great weather, such a (large) Hispanic population, too, that will really follow my career closely, I’m just so excited to be out there.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Reach Paul Tenorio at [email protected].

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“It’s just an unbelievable experience.”

Luis Castillo,

San Diego Chargers defensive lineman

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 After an emotional day, Luis Castillo was drafted by a surprise team

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Please see charge, Page 10