Name: Chuck Castellano
Title: Senior Director of Community Outreach
Years with Organization: 25
What role does the department play within the organization?
Our team flows through Vice President of Community Impact and Civic Affairs Anne Scharf. As a result, we help to accentuate the efforts being accomplished by the Hunt Family Foundation and activate eclectic segments of our Chiefs Community Caring Team. We also work in concert with our current players and their affiliates to facilitate impactful initiatives and programs throughout the community. Our outreach team is also the organization's main clearinghouse for all alumni players—or Legends as we refer to them—including the Kansas City Ambassadors. We also have the pleasure of overseeing the Red Coaters, a group of Season Ticket Members that receive benefits including field access during pregame pageantry based on the volunteerism they perform on behalf of the Chiefs.
How did you first get into this line of work?
I initially joined the Kansas City Chiefs as a seasonal assistant for the 2000 season. At that point, the organization didn't have a formal community department, and I didn't even realize it was an option as a professional aspiration. However, I worked very closely with the individual that would ultimately oversee our community team once it was formally established in 2001. Based on the relationships I curated as a seasonal, I began to realize what at that time was a segment of the public relations department's responsibilities was a personal passion point. That enlightenment was a draw to explore helping to uplift others throughout Chiefs Kingdom utilizing the assets housed by the Chiefs Community Caring Team. Since that time, I have been proud to be one of the initial full-timers to be brought onboard of our community outreach department.
Is this something you always wanted to do?
Once I realized it was an actual career path, yes. It took me a while to find my fit in the workplace. I had multiple failed majors in college and, in hindsight, realized that was mainly because I was manifesting career aspirations that others had identified for me as opposed to really digging deeper to find out what I truly wanted to do. As I realized that sport was more than just what you saw on television and was actually a microcosm of a Fortune 500 company with various roles and responsibilities, I navigated to a major in sports management. I'm humbled that once I finally identified that fit, I was able to achieve a career path so quickly and that my initial full-time position was one in the NFL.
Who has made the biggest impact on your professional career?
As cliché as it might seem, Chiefs Founder Lamar Hunt was an amazing role model and mentor of mine. He had a humble approach and always leaned into the philosophy that you should hire good people, then allow their talents to shine. He really was an amazing innovator and a genius to the level of the infamous Bill Veeck in baseball. Both Lamar and Bill would model their sport franchises by looking through the lens of the fans, mainly because at their core, they were ultimately fans of their respective games first. I was fortunate to have had multiple interactions with Lamar before he passed, and each time it helped to mold my future direction while reinforcing that there is no place for robust egos in a healthy work environment. He instilled that we should be focused on winning with character, and in doing so, capitalize on uniting our community and being an inspirational force for our fans.
How does your department have the biggest impact on the organization?
Ironically, our biggest value to the organization often comes when things on the playing field are less than ideal. Essentially, we reinforce that while winning another Lombardi Trophy remains the north star each season, there's only one team that achieves that success. Still, even without that fortune, the organization and its various components are impactful corporate citizens locally in Kansas City, throughout Chiefs Kingdom, and now internationally as well. So, Coach Reid's sustained success when paired with our General Manager Brett Veach and President Mark Donovan has allowed our group the ability to mature and evolve to embrace a bit of a renaissance that has been transpiring throughout our building. This has led us to craft impactful programming in unison with others including our marketing team. Through Red Friday, we raise funds annually for the Ronald McDonald House, typically at or around the million-dollar threshold. The Chiefs Charity Game remains a unique fundraising vehicle, which raised $430,000 for Jackson County CASA last year alone. Both of those efforts were established in part by Lamar Hunt. Since originally coming to Kansas City in July of 2015, the Hunt Family Foundation has also been a founding partner and donated more than a million dollars to support City Year's efforts to enhance the education of local youth. As a result, it's helping 66 AmeriCorps members serve 4,500 KCPS students. Financially, those are tangible dollars that truly impact the community. That said, the heart of the answer as to the biggest impact we offer is truthfully in the countless number of individuals that interact with our players and Legends throughout the myriad of outreach programs we facilitate. So many of them would likely not be able to even attend a game, but as we craft an opportunity that brings these personalities to them, they get to experience a little bit of what gameday is like.
What about your department are you most proud of?
It's a responsibility I don't take lightly that I'm tasked with leading our group. I am humbled that now more than ever we have a diverse group of professionals with a tremendous playbook of strengths. Collectively, they inspire me daily and do a creative job of challenging me in a productive manner. Having been here for more than a quarter century now, it's easy to fall into the rut of doing things in repetition just because "that's the way we've always done them." This group wants to excel professionally, but do so for the right reasons. At its core, our department isn't merely a group of individuals that work in a community outreach department. Instead, it truly lives those virtues, embracing the essence and core principles that drive it.
What's your favorite memory as a member of the organization?
I think that my favorite moment was when we won the Lamar Hunt Trophy for the first time. It was on our way to securing our first Super Bowl title in 50 years, and that latter victory was certainly surreal in and of itself. Still, the AFC Championship trophy had been renamed in honor of Lamar Hunt back in 1984, and from that moment a collective goal was to secure the trophy on behalf of our founder. I can remember the year before we finally broke through coming so close but falling in overtime of the AFC Championship Game to the New England Patriots, the eventual Super Bowl LIII champs. That game was such a gut-wrenching defeat that when we won it the next year, thereby qualifying for Super Bowl LIV, it was a literal dream come true and a bit if vindication on behalf of the entire Hunt family. In a way, it has become the seminal moment that launched the franchise's recent improbable run of sustained success, which now fortunately counts a total of five Lamar Hunt Trophies in these past six years alone.
