Recipient of racist e-mail satisfied with CU's actions

John Aguilar, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 12, 2005 at midnight

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A University of Colorado cross- country runner who received a racist e-mail last week said he was satisfied with the athletic department's decision to suspend a football player accused of helping write the message.

"They did the right thing," Greg Castro said Sunday about the action taken against offensive tackle Clint O'Neal.

Castro, who is Hispanic, received an e-mail Dec. 4 allegedly written by O'Neal and his girlfriend, Jacqueline Zeigle, in which Castro was called a "river rat," a "border hopper" and a "bean eating piece of (expletive)."

Both Zeigle, who is from Utah, and O'Neal, who is from Texas, are white.

Castro said the e-mail did little to bolster the status of the school's athletic program, which already has suffered from a football recruiting scandal and last week's ouster of football coach Gary Barnett.

"Putting on a CU uniform is a privilege," Castro said. "It's an honor to wear black and gold."

In a statement released Sunday, Athletic Director Michael Bohn said Zeigle, a senior CU runner, notified the department that "she will no longer be associated with the cross-country and track programs" and had quit "for personal reasons."

Bohn said he suspended O'Neal, a senior, for "violation of team and athletic department rules." He did not mention the e-mail in his statement.

Castro, a sophomore, said he didn't know O'Neal, who is 6-foot-6 and 305 pounds, but had heard Zeigle invoke her boyfriend's name to threaten others.

Castro acknowledged that he and Zeigle didn't get along, largely because he said she tried to implicate him in a cheating scandal in a mass media class they took together last year.

But he said he was surprised at just how bitter she was toward him.

"I am still baffled by why she wrote what she did," he said.

In the e-mail, the author threatened to "come find you and drag you behind my (expletive) car," a supposed reference to a 1998 incident in which a black man was dragged to his death by three white men in Jasper, Texas.

The e-mail, a copy of which was provided by Castro to the Rocky Mountain News, was titled "U f----- S---," using a derogatory term for a Hispanic.

Zeigle told police last week that Castro had mocked her and had an "obsession" with her.

She told investigators she wrote the e-mail with her boyfriend because Castro had pushed her sister at a party on Dec. 2.

Castro denied that he had ever harassed Zeigle. He said that at the party Zeigle referred to in her conversation with police, he physically "picked up" his friend, Stephen Pifer, to remove him from an argument he was having with Laura Zeigle, Pifer's ex-girlfriend and Jacqueline Zeigle's twin sister.

Castro said he never touched either of the women.

Zeigle declined to comment Sunday, writing "leave me alone" in an e-mail in response to an inquiry from the News.

O'Neal could not be reached.

Castro said he thinks Zeigle left the cross-country team for more than personal reasons.

"It almost seems like she got out before she got pushed out," he said.

Last week, O'Neal and Zeigle were ticketed by CU police for alleged harassment and ethnic intimidation and were summoned to appear in Boulder County Court on Dec. 19.

The school's judicial affairs office also could investigate the incident and impose disciplinary measures.

Castro said he just hoped that Zeigle and O'Neal would apologize and show some remorse.

"I want them to understand that what they did was wrong," he said.

aguilarj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2550

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