During the summer months, the start of fall sports season really starts to sneak up on you, doesn't it?

One day you're watching a Legion baseball game, the next, the games are going fast and furious.

DURING MY time at the Shoshone News-Press in Kellogg, there was always a sure sign of when the seasons were getting going.

Watching a pack of high school runners going through uptown on their own.

No coach, just a group of runners going through town like they owned it.

The coach often times could be found at the middle school track, either working with another athlete or waiting on his kids to return.

Either way, they were always easy to find.

Cross country isn't quite the glamour sport in the Silver Valley that football and volleyball are.

Only one home meet throughout the season, and often times on a night when volleyball matches were almost certainly at home.

Three schools - only one that offers that sport - and one guy to wrangle that program in his own special way.

For the record, I wasn't coached by Ben Castro during his time in Kellogg. Didn't even go to school there and didn't really get to know the man until I started working at the Shoshone News-Press some 14 years ago.

What I knew of him, his mind for the sport was great and he always got the most out of each and every one of his athletes during his time in Kellogg.

Once I started covering more events, Ben was always there, picking my brain about running and talking about athletes he was training with.

CASTRO PASSED away at the age of 85 on Monday night at Shoshone Medical Center in Kellogg. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict, Castro worked at the L.A. Times for 19 years as a linotype director, meanwhile continuing to further his education to get his master's degree and served as a professor of graphic arts at Fullerton Community College in Calif., before retiring.

Ben and his wife moved to the Silver Valley in 1996 - the year before I graduated high school - and he served as cross country and track coach in the Kellogg School District until he retired - for good five years ago.

Whenever I'd see Ben at state meets, either at Circling Raven Golf Club in Worley or at Hells Canyon State Park in Lewiston, he'd always greet me with the same smile and how you doing that he'd do as if I was still working in Kellogg.

Ben wasn't your ordinary coach either. Often times, he'd be working with students that just wanted some knowledge on how to be faster, no matter what school they might have attended.

He'd coached state champions, but he was equally proud of each of his athletes, no matter where they finished.

BEN WAS a unique coach in that I don't think I've seen one that cared so much for his athletes, win or lose.

He was like a father to his athletes, taking them home from practice, buying them ice cream on warm days and making sure to keep things fun at those home meets.

He'll definitely be missed.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.