09-13-2008, 07:44 AM
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Head Coach
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Quote:
Katzenmoyer, Reluctant Phenom, Finds What It?s Like to Be Normal
By PETE THAMEL
Published: September 12, 2008
WESTERVILLE, Ohio ? The player who was supposed to redefine the linebacker position in the N.F.L. now plays fantasy football on Sundays. The player who created so much hysteria at Ohio State that people waited outside the shower in his dorm to ask for autographs now solicits clients for his personal training studio. And the player who was stigmatized by Sports Illustrated as the consummate dumb jock of the 1990s is back in college pursuing his degree. He even read about himself in a sociology textbook.
Kirk Irwin for The New York Times
Andy Katzenmoyer, left, was an all-American as a sophomore at Ohio State, in 1997.
Associated Press
Katzenmoyer didn?t make it in the N.F.L. He is happier now, he said, away from football.
?That,? said Andy Katzenmoyer, a former Ohio State linebacker, ?was weird.?
It is indeed strange how things turned out for Katzenmoyer, the can?t-miss prospect who did. He left the New England Patriots? training camp without permission in 2001 because of a neck injury, retired after two injury-plagued seasons in the N.F.L., and proceeded to avoid the public spotlight as if it were, well, a blitzing linebacker.
After a bumpy road to a typical American life, Katzenmoyer has found serenity.
?My life is so regular,? Katzenmoyer, 30, said in his first sit-down interview with a national publication in a decade. ?It?s so bizarre to think back 8 or 10 years ago and how my life has changed. What?s most strange is that I?m happier now living a normal life than I was back playing football.?
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Quote:
Katzenmoyer said the stigma at Ohio State loomed over him so much that he made a conscious decision not to use his name in the gym he recently opened: L.I.F.T. Fitness in Westerville.
“If you look at chat boards or do a Google search, every chat board says how dumb I am, how I ruined the Ohio State name and how I disgraced Archie Griffin,” he said. “To me, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Katzenmoyer, who made roughly $3.5 million for his three years in the N.F.L., worked odd jobs when he returned home. He and his mother bought and sold houses. He did some construction work with a friend. He volunteered at his high school, Westerville South, as the defensive coordinator. He took classes part time at Ohio State, where he read about himself in the sociology book, and worked in the weight room. His mother recalled him saying, “I’m 25 and I’m a has-been.”
His family worried. As his friends married, had children and moved away for new jobs, Katzenmoyer was still searching for himself.
“I was in a depression,” he said. “I didn’t know what I wanted, where my life was going and what I was going to do. For so long my identity was being a football player. I was scared.”
Mowad added: “I was pretty worried. He was at the bottom.”
His family credits a close circle of about 15 friends from high school for their support. His football support system, which includes his agent, Neil Cornrich, the former Ohio State Coach John Cooper, the Notre Dame defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta and Michigan State Coach Mark Dantonio, also helped.
But everything turned for Katzenmoyer in 2003, when he met his future wife, Ashleigh Quint, at a gym. She shared his interest in working out and later encouraged him to leave Ohio State and study where she earned her degree, Otterbein College in Westerville.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/sp...f=ncaafootball
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