Marching in step with the maiden voyage of the rededicated SS Yucatan, a float rebuilt by the Rough Riders of Tampa and unveiled at the Greater Brandon Fourth of July Parade, Michael Cauger honored his idol, best friend, father and childhood memories.
Cauger graduated from Brandon High School in 1988, the year before Bloomingdale High School had its first senior class. With boyhood friend and fraternity brother Norman ‘Norm’ Castellano, Cauger said he would watch Norm’s father, John Castellano, march as a Rough Rider at Gasparilla and Brandon parades, vowing to one day become Rough Riders themselves.
Norm followed through first, then died unexpectedly in 2015, at age 44, with a dental practice in Tampa. “Out of loyalty to my relationship to Norm, it was even more important to become a Rough Rider,” Cauger said.
At every parade since, Cauger and John carry Norm’s bead bag, “and especially at the Brandon parade, since Norm was a Brandon boy, born and bred,” Cauger said. “Marching in our hometown parade would have been important to him, and so it is for me.”
Named after the famous 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, known as the ‘Rough Riders’ and led by Theodore Roosevelt during the 1898 Spanish-American War, the Tampa Rough Riders were founded in 1978. The nonprofit is known for civic engagement, parade participation and charitable activities, including ‘teddy bear’ runs held for hospital patients, abused women and children, foster children, cancer survivors and more.
The teddy bear was named for Roosevelt, the nation’s 26th president from 1901-09.
“He was such a phenomenal man and had such depth to him,” Cauger said, “including the way he presented himself, the type of speaker he was and the way he talked his way into commandeering the SS Yucatan to carry as many Rough Riders as they could.”
Recognizing military service looms large for Cauger, whose father, Michael ‘Cooter’ Cauger, was a highly decorated veteran who served with the U.S. Army in Korea and Vietnam and died in 2006. As a Rough Rider, “I can honor my father without having been a military man myself,” Cauger said.
At a ceremony in July, Cauger, with Rough Rider Jeff Mainger, accepted on behalf of the Rough Riders the Brandon parade award for Best Professional Float.
“Until you experience it, you can’t describe the feeling being in the parade gives you,” Cauger said. “From watching the parade as a child to now passing on the legacy of bringing enjoyment to kids and families, it’s an honor to do so through the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt and what he stood for.”
