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LB Andy Katzenmoyer (1997 Butkus Award)

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There is some inconsistency in these posted articles. Did he possibly finish his sociology degree at Ohio State and then start a second degree?

Katzenmoyer was a tremendous player who was treated almost with contempt by many Ohio State fans (i.e., treated like he was stupid, etc.). I met him once on campus and he seemed like a helluva nice guy and very down to earth.

It is great to hear that he has found happiness after his injuries and possibly come to terms with knowing he would never really live out his dreams in the NFL.

Can you imagine how lucky you would be to have that guy for your defensive coach in high school! :osu:
 
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Steve19;948705; said:
There is some inconsistency in these posted articles. Did he possibly finish his sociology degree at Ohio State and then start a second degree?

Katzenmoyer was a tremendous player who was treated almost with contempt by many Ohio State fans (i.e., treated like he was stupid, etc.). I met him once on campus and he seemed like a helluva nice guy and very down to earth.

It is great to hear that he has found happiness after his injuries and possibly come to terms with knowing he would never really live out his dreams in the NFL.

Can you imagine how lucky you would be to have that guy for your defensive coach in high school! :osu:
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Steve, you are right. He was a great guy. To my knowledge, he hasn't graduated from tOSU in any capacity. Truth be told, I know he was very partial to Coach Coop and didn't appreciate the way Coop was dismissed. I don't know if that has a direct impact on whether or not he decided to go back to Otterbein vs tOSU...but I will ask him the next time I see him.

To your point, he was also unfortunately treated w/ disdain by the New England media and fans (generally speaking) at the time of his abrupt placement on IR and eventual retirement.

What those people didn't see was the 6 inch or so scar the width of an index finger which started at the base of his neck - no one should have questioned his love for the game or ability. This came down to a decision on whether he wanted to risk the ability to walk.
 
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found this on scout...Big Kat and his wife's new gym

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good bio on the site

Andy Katzenmoyer

High School:
1996 (Senior): Named USA Today Defensive Player of the Year, USA Today All-American, Mr. Ohio Football, All-Ohio, All-District, Central Ohio Player of the Year, OCC Player of the Year, presented with the Bobby Dodd Award (Atlanta Touchdown Club), High School Player of the Year (Columbus Touchdown Club). 1995 (Junior) Named All-Ohio, All-District. 1994 (Sophomore) Second Team All-District

College:
Andy Katzenmoyer was a three-year letterman at The Ohio State University. He started all 37 games during his college career. Despite playing only three seasons at Ohio State, he finished his career ranked fifth on the school?s career record list with 197 solo tackles and 18 quarterback sacks, and fourth with 50 stops behind the line of scrimmage. In 1998 as a Junior, he earned All-Big Ten first-team selection, was a finalist for the Dick Butkus Award, (given to the nation?s premier linebacker), the Lombardi Award and the Maxwell Football Club?s Defensive Player of the Year award. As a Sophomore, Andy was the consensus All-American first-team selection, was the first player from OSU to win the Butkus Award and was a finalist for the Lombardi, Bronko Nagurski and Maxwell Awards. In1996 as a Freshman, Andy was an All-American second-team selection by the Associated Press, First-team All-Big Ten Conference, Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and Andy was the first freshman linebacker to ever start all 12 games at Ohio State.

Professional:
In 1999, the New England Patriots drafted Andy 28th overall in the NFL draft. Andy played in every game as a rookie, starting the first 11 at middle linebacker for the injured Ted Johnson. Andy finished his rookie campaign ranked third on the team with 107 tackles, including 76 solo stops. His 3.5 sacks ranked third on the team. Andy returned his only interception of the season 57 yards for a touchdown - his first career touchdown. To cap off this exceptional year, Andy earned Miller Lite Player of the Game honors for his performance against the Dolphins and was named to the NFL All Rookie Team. Unfortunately, Andy suffered a career-ending injury with the Patriots, and retired from playing football.

Post Career and Personal:
Andy has spent one year as an intern with The Ohio State University football team and has been exposed to an assortment of different styles of training. He has coached for three years at Westerville South High School as the defensive coordinator. Andy is currently completing his degree at Otterbein College, majoring in Health Promotion and Fitness. Andy is a certified personal trainer with the ACSM organization. He is married to Ashleigh, co-owner of L.I.F.T. Andy and Ashleigh are expecting their first child this April.
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Welcome to L.I.F.T. Fitness
 
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Alive & Unedited
Kat power
By Nick Iannarino

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WILL SHILLING PHOTO

It's hard to believe 10 years have passed since a defiant Andy Katzenmoyer glared at America from the cover of Sports Illustrated. Not because he looks any less intimidating these days ? if anything, he's gotten bigger ? but because speaking to him about his time spent plowing unsuspecting quarterbacks into the 'Shoe's sod makes it seem like only yesterday.

Ask the ridiculously decorated former linebacker about his favorite game at Ohio State, and he'll tell you about the 1997 Rose Bowl against Arizona State. The textbook two-minute drill comeback. The way the teams matched up evenly. The perfect way it all worked out.

"Well, it wasn't very perfect," Katzenmoyer, 30, maintains. "I missed that tackle on [quarterback] Jake Plummer and had him score."

A bright future on the gridiron was dimmed in 1999 when Katzenmoyer suffered a neck injury during an excellent rookie season with the New England Patriots, leading to his retirement in 2001.

But true to his moniker, the Big Kat has landed on his feet. With his wife, Ashleigh, and brother-in-law, John Rocco Quint, Katzenmoyer opened the doors to L.I.F.T. (Life Improvement Functional Training) Fitness, a personal training studio offering everything from neuromuscular therapy to holistic perspectives, in his native Westerville in March.

Alive TV
Click here to watch video of interview
What was it like after you were forced to hang up your cleats?

It was a rough couple of years, me trying to figure out what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, and who I was. I mean, the football player was over with and now I've gotta find out who I really am and what I really want to do. And it was hard.

But then meeting my wife and having our relationship grow, she helped me realize what I wanted to do, and to move past that point and to get where I'm at today.

How'd L.I.F.T. come about?

I've always enjoyed lifting weights and working out, and I met my wife, actually, at a gym. She's always enjoyed this, and my brother-in-law is a bodybuilder and obviously loves lifting. So, we kind of talked about it for a couple of years and decided that this is something we should really do, because we feel like we can offer things to people that they can't get in Columbus.
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Have you ever made a play that made you wonder, "How the hell did I do that?"

Probably the play I'll never understand, we were playing at Missouri and I hit [quarterback] Corby Jones. He was killing us that game, scrambling around. And the hit that I put on him, I mean, I almost knocked his helmet off and I think it knocked him out. He never was the same.

And I never understood how he didn't see me coming. I never understood that. And if you watch the film, he just doesn't look. He just gets run over. I feel bad for the guy, because he was an amazing player.

YouTube - Katzenmoyer blast Corby Jones

What do you see for yourself down the road?

I'm just planning for the next year and getting through that. I have a lot of good stuff going on right now, and I haven't been this happy my entire life. So, I'm kind of living in the now.
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Columbus Alive -

[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dfkWuDTsicg"]YouTube - Katzenmoyer blast Corby Jones[/ame]
 
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Football: "Big Kat" Named Honorary Captain for Game Today vs. YSU
Courtesy: OhioStateBuckeyes.com
Release: 08/30/2008

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Former Buckeye All-American linebacker Anyd Katzenmoyer will serve as Ohio State's honorary captain Saturday vs. Youngstown State. OSU's first Butkus Award winner will join Boeckman, Jenkins, Laurinaitis and Robiskie at coin toss.

Andy Katzenmoyer - 1997 BUTKUS AWARD WINNER

Andy Katzenmoyer started the first game of his freshman year in 1996 and was a regular for 37 consecutive games. He opted for an NFL career at the end of his junior season. He won a plethora of awards, including the 1997 Butkus Award and consensus All-America honors as a sophomore, and the 1996 Football News and Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He was a three-time all-Big Ten selection and a two-time finalist for the Lombardi Award.

Katzenmoyer amassed three-year statistical totals of 197 solo tackles, 256 total tackles, 50 tackles-for-loss, 192 yards in losses, 18 quarterback sacks and six interceptions. He was twice named the team?s Randy Gradishar Award winner as best linebacker (1997-98). He scored twice on interceptions, vs. Minnesota as a freshman and vs. Arizona as a sophomore, tying a school record for interception return TDs. He also tied the school record with five tackles-for-loss in a game (vs. Arizona State in the 1997 Rose Bowl).

A consensus All-American as a sophomore in 1997, he became only the second sophomore to win the Butkus Award as the nation?s outstanding linebacker. He was a Lombardi Award finalist, ranking second on the team with 97 tackles, including 13 tackles-for-loss. He clinched the Arizona win with a 20-yard interception return touchdown. He had 11 tackles against both Arizona and Iowa. In 1996 he became the first freshman to start every game at linebacker for the Buckeyes, finished second on the team with 85 tackles and paced the team with 23 tackles-for-loss and sacks (12), both school records for a linebacker.

As a junior in 1998, Katzenmoyer was a finalist for the Maxwell Football Club?s Defensive Player of the Year Award (in addition to the Lombardi Award) and he anchored the nation?s top-ranked defense against the run and second-ranked total defense. A first-round draft pick of the New England Patriots, his professional career was cut short by injury.
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Football: "Big Kat" Named Honorary Captain for Game Today vs. YSU - The Ohio State Buckeyes Official Athletics Site - OhioStateBuckeyes.com
 
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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.

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Kirk Irwin for The New York Times
Andy Katzenmoyer, left, was an all-American as a sophomore at Ohio State, in 1997.

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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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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/sports/ncaafootball/13osu.html?ref=ncaafootball
 
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ATH: Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2009 Announced
Courtesy: OhioStateBuckeyes.com
Release: 06/23/2009

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COLUMBUS, Ohio ? Twelve members will be inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame the weekend of Sept. 25-26, the Men?s Varsity O Alumni Association and the Women?s Varsity O Alumnae Society announced Tuesday. The class will be officially inducted in two separate ceremonies Sept. 25 and introduced to the public at halftime of the Ohio State home football game against Illinois Sept. 26.

The 2009 class includes: Men - Neal Colzie (football), Robert Gary (cross country/track and field), Bob Hopper (swimming), Andy Katzenmoyer (football), Dick LeBeau (football), Michael Redd (basketball) and Pandel Savic (football); Women - Kaja Fiserova (rowing), Allison Hanna (golf), Vanessa Immordino (field hockey), Emma Laaksonen (ice hockey) and Jim Montrella (swimming coach).

Andy Katzenmoyer
Football 1996-98
All-American Andy Katzenmoyer won the Dick Butkus Award in 1997, the first Ohio State middle linebacker to win the award. A three-time First Team All-Big Ten member, Katzenmoyer put up big numbers, ranking in the Top 10 in Ohio State record books for career solo tackles, tackles for loss in a game, season and career, tackles for loss yards in a season and career, quarterback sacks in a game, season and career, quarterback sack yards in a season and career, and career interception returns for touchdowns. A member of the 1997 Rose Bowl champion Buckeyes, Katzenmoyer was selected in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots, but suffered a neck injury in his first season that cut his professional career short.
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ATH: Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2009 Announced - The Ohio State Buckeyes Official Athletics Site - OhioStateBuckeyes.com
 
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It should be interesting to see the reaction that he gets. You can not argue that he was a beast of a player, and deserves to be in the hall of fame. But the negative press that came with his class schedule left a sore taste in some people mouths when it comes to him. Heck there is an entire chapter in a book about things that are wrong with college sports vs academics that is written about him. Hopefully people will be respectful and honor him as the great football player he was.
 
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buckeyefool;1487454; said:
It should be interesting to see the reaction that he gets. You can not argue that he was a beast of a player, and deserves to be in the hall of fame. But the negative press that came with his class schedule left a sore taste in some people mouths when it comes to him. Heck there is an entire chapter in a book about things that are wrong with college sports vs academics that is written about him. Hopefully people will be respectful and honor him as the great football player he was.
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Good post and points, but my prediction on the "reaction" that Andy gets from the fans will be "deafening." Toss a coin between him and Redd for the loudest, but I think Andy wil take it by a decibal or two.

Peace.
 
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Andy was one hell of a football player. I loved the way he played the game and his impact on the defensive side of the ball was immediate... a 3-year player at OSU that was a 3-time All American. I remember he was on the verge of breaking out in the NFL when he had that freak neck injury, too.

From one WSHS alumni to another, I wish you the best Andy! And congrats on making the OSU Hall of Fame! You deserve it man.
 
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