Marcus Castro-Walker has joined Billy Napier’s staff as the director of player engagement and NIL.
He worked at Nebraska as the director of player development this past season. In this role, he developed, implemented and monitored a student mentoring program for the players.
Castro-Walker spent the 2017-20 seasons as the director of college personnel at Arizona State, where he helped the Sun Devils land players out of the transfer portal. He also worked at UCF for one year in a similar capacity.
He was born in Toronto, Canada, and he graduated from Eastern Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies.
He joined the Arizona State staff as a graduate assistant in 2008 and worked with the Office of Student-Athlete Development. After earning his master’s degree in higher and post-secondary education, the Sun Devils hired him as an academic coach.
Castro-Walker parlayed that experience into his jobs at UCF, Nebraska and, now, Florida. He is the first person UF has hired to specifically handle issues related to name, image and likeness since NIL legislation went into effect in July and forever changed the landscape of college sports.