ANDY KATZENMOYER PROFESSIONAL
ANDY KATZENMOYER TV

There can be no argument about that.Ĭonsider, too, that Andy was not yet born when Griffin was excelling as a Buckeye running back. OK, so maybe they conceded because he was such a marvelous prospect, one still considering offers from Nebraska, Penn State and Boston College at the time.Īt any rate, he has worn the number with distinction. “Andy did not demand the number, and it was promised him by (head coach) John Cooper and Archie himself, because they knew it had been his high school number and they knew he favored it.” “That is an oft-told lie,” Katzenmoyer said. We couldn’t believe how much attention that story received across the nation.”Įarlier, there was the matter of Andy wearing, supposedly demanding, Griffin’s number. “Until then,” Katzenmoyer said, “we felt Andy was just some sort of local phenomenon. When, for example, Andy had to endure summer school in order to maintain his eligibility, the story was at the top of the news for days. nevermind that he was only 9 or 10 years old That’s when I began to understand that he might someday be exceptional, as far as athletics were concerned.”Įven then, he understood the games, if not the games people later would play with his mind and at considerable expense to the family.

He wanted to know why this or that was done.

ANDY KATZENMOYER TV

“We’d watch games on TV and he’d question every move. It’s the pressure.” Katzenmoyer talked some more about the days in the kid leagues. Then, out of the blue, Andy said, “I can understand that. Katzenmoyer paused for a moment, waited for the memories to settle, and then went on: “When Andy was 10, I was taking him to pitch an important game and there was a report on the radio about Dwight Gooden’s problems with drugs,” Katzenmoyer said. That, after all, had been their game together, with Dad coaching and Andy pitching, catching, playing first base and the outfield. “That was a sad day in our house,” Katzenmoyer said, not because football had been chosen, but because baseball had been abandoned.

ANDY KATZENMOYER PROFESSIONAL

“Ever since he was 10,” Katzenmoyer said, “he has wanted to be a professional athlete and all he has done was directed toward that goal.”įor a spell, Katzenmoyer thought his son would become a professional baseball player, but Andy decided after his sophomore year at Westerville High in suburban Columbus to concentrate wholly on football. Yes, Andy Katzenmoyer might have traded one sport for another, but his dream would have remained on a singular course. “Some of the players just wouldn’t accept him and, after the Wisconsin game (the fifth game of the season in his freshman year of 1996), he considered giving up football and instead concentrating on baseball.” “It was a very, very difficult time for Andy,” the elder Katzenmoyer said. Although Ohio State does not retire numbers, 45 had not been issued since Griffin’s senior season of 1975. Multiply that by 400 and you have a day in the life of the Big Kat.Ĭonsider what Andy endured as a freshman pushing his way into the starting lineup on a team dominated by upperclassmen - and him wearing two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin’s No. “Turn your head to the right.” Click.“Turn your head to the left.” Click. Photographers took 800 pictures, according to his father. It doesn’t get much better than that - or, as a matter of fact, much more difficult.Ĭonsider, for example, when Sports Illustrated decided to feature him in this fall’s college football issue. His son is 20, a linebacker of considerable renown for Ohio State University, a starter since he was 17 years old and the winner of the Butkus Award for defensive excellence last autumn as a sophomore.

He is 55 and has been with the state for 28 years, rising from a wildlife management assistant in the District Three office in Coventry to director of business operations statewide for the division. “I don’t know where all of this is going,” Warren Katzenmoyer said the other day during an interview in his office at the Division of Wildlife headquarters. Maybe there’ll be time later on for the two of them to hunt and fish again. Guy stuff, wonderful stuff, but memories now, just memories, put away so new ones may be created. They’d hunt for everything except deer and migratory waterfowl and they’d fish for whatever was biting. For the Katzenmoyers, times spent hunting and fishing may be gone forever - replaced by difficult times for a star athlete and his familyĬOLUMBUS: Just a short while ago, life was so simple, so believable and indeed bearable for Warren Katzenmoyer and his gifted only son, Andy, the Big Kat.

Andy katzenmoyer