Family means many things to Towson University junior Chris Katz: his aunt and uncle back at home in Olney, Maryland; his fraternity brothers here at Towson; and the community of sports writers and fans with whom he shares.
Katz, a Mass Communication major, is studying to become a sports journalist and dreams of one day working as a sports analyst at Sports Center.
He remembers playing catch with his uncle in their backyard almost everyday of his childhood, something which served as a formative experience for his love of sports and his outlook on life.
“He’d make me feel like I could pitch faster than people in the major leagues even though I probably couldn’t throw it any more than like 30 miles an hour,” Katz said. “At that young age he made me feel confident in my ability to not only throw a baseball, but he made me feel like I could do anything that I ever wanted to.”
Katz was born in Florida where he lived with his mother until she had an overdose and he went to live with his dad. He and his dad moved to Arizona where his dad, too, had an overdose.
Immediately afterwards, in the winter of his 2nd grade year, Katz moved to live with his aunt and uncle in Maryland and has lived with them ever since. They made the adoption official when Katz was in high school.
“My family that I live with took me out of some really bad situations and propelled me into some really good situations,” he said.
He said he uses the labels “aunt and uncle” and “mom and dad” interchangeably depending on who he’s talking to: the former if he’s talking to his adoptive parents, other family members or family friends; the latter for ease’s sake when speaking with people who aren’t familiar with his family background.
Katz said coming to college was not only a high achievement for him, but for his family as well.
“Coming to college was really cool because I’m actually the first one in my bloodline to go to college,” he said.
During his freshman year at Towson, Katz said he wasn’t involved at all on campus. That all changed in the fall of 2015, during Katz’s sophomore year, when he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity at Towson. One of his high school friends was also a member of the fraternity and talked him into joining.
“At first, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” he said, but added that he’s been immensely grateful for being part of SAE.
While Katz’s aunt and uncle have two biological children, they are each over ten years older than Katz, so it’s nice to have a fraternity full of “brothers” his age, he said.
When Katz’s girlfriend broke up with him, his fraternity brothers rallied around him to distract him from being upset. This past summer, Katz and his fraternity went to leadership convention with 720 national SAE members on a cruise to the Bahamas where he bonded even more with his brothers — from Towson as well as his SAE extended family.
In the 5th grade, Katz’s aunt and uncle let him stay up past his bedtime for the first time to watch the Super Bowl.
The underdog Giants beat the undefeated (at the time) Patriots, and Katz has been a diehard Giants fan ever since.
“It felt as if I was on the team, that’s how happy I was,” he said. “Since then, I always started a love for the Giants and it just kind of just snowballed into a love for all sports and all aspects of sports.”
He played baseball until 8th grade, and basketball until 10th grade when he tore his labrum. Katz’s favorite sport is a tie between basketball and football, and he loves watching and writing about both.
Katz remembers first becoming interested in sports journalism in the 5th grade when he saw one of his cousins — who he said is like a brother to him — playing a Madden NFL video game. Katz said he kept asking his cousin a bunch of questions about the game. That curiosity for uncovering the minute details of sports eventually led Katz to pursue a career as a sports journalist.
Last semester, Katz started writing his fantasy football blog which he said has garnered over 800 views so far.
“I write my own fantasy football blog that [his aunt and uncle] both read every post even though they have no idea what any of it means,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that my parents would support me in anything that I would do.”
Families come in all shapes and sizes, but if there’s one thing Katz knows for sure it’s that he couldn’t live without them.
“Without my family, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today,” he said.
https://soundcloud.com/user-962610014/fantasy-football-blogger-leans-on-family-for-support
Note: Within the audio clip, Katz’s mentions of his parents/mom and dad refer to his aunt and uncle.
Marcus Dieterle 