The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/157974
two of his better sports, and in the latter his high school coach was more than just an on-field mentor. Ron Cain was, as Bishop described him, "this guy that kind of raised me as a kid growing up in Kentucky." Cain would accept a job as an assistant coach at Kentucky following Bishop's senior season, and Bishop, who had other options, chose to follow Cain to play for the Wildcats. Bishop arrived at Kentucky in the fall of 1970, and at that time freshmen were not allowed to play college football. Despite that, Bishop's 14 career interceptions and 376 interception return yards still remain Kentucky school records, the interception total three more than any other Wildcat has ever accumulated. Bishop returned two of those picks for touchdowns, including a 97-yarder against Mississippi State in 1972. Bishop was a two-time AllSEC honoree and was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1974, but his career was cut short before it could start because of a torn ACL. Yet despite his exploits on the gridiron, Bishop may have left a bigger mark on the hardwood. While Bishop could not play football that freshman season, Kentucky JV basketball coach and varsity assistant Joe B. Hall approached Bishop about playing hoops. "I guess he didn't get a great recruiting class that year, so he asked me to go out for the team," Bishop remembered. "That's how I ended up going out for basketball." The significance of Bishop stepping on the court in a Kentucky uniform is that he became the first African-American to ever play the sport for UK, a feat that the mildmannered Bishop overlooked. At the time, he viewed it more as, "I like basketball, so I'll play." "Years later, I realized what had happened," Bishop said. Bishop started playing basketball again his sophomore year, playing five games in 1971-72, but under head coach Adolph Rupp he was not as comfortable. "I decided to kind of leave it alone," Bishop said. Since then, Bishop has taken a low-key reflection to his experience. "Really the only difficulty I had was traveling in the crowd," Bishop said. "I would stay in the hotel room while the other guys went out, stuff like that. "That was a long time ago. Different people have approached me and say I should write a book on some of the things I went through. I chose to take that road of not writing a book, because if I had, a lot of people would have been going through trouble." Like Father, Like Son Aside from the dramatic difference in times socially, Cato-Bishop has taken an athletic course strikingly similar to his father. Cato-Bishop was a star basketball player growing up. Unlike his dad, CatoBishop mainly just focused on hoops. "100 percent," he noted. The father even coached his son when Cato-Bishop played recreational league basketball as a youth. It was not until CatoBishop's senior year of high school that Cato-Bishop began to realize his ultimate future might be in football. The summer prior to Cato-Bishop's senior season, Lawrence Academy went through a preseason camp run by former New York Giants Perry Williams and Curtis McGriff. Williams also played football at NC State from 1980-82. "They told me I could be a good football player if I worked on the fundamentals of the game," Cato-Bishop said. "They were in my ear about it. They were pushing me towards football, and my head football coach [Mike Taylor] wanted me to play football." Cato-Bishop had received a wide range of recruiting attention in hoops that included a couple of Big East schools, he said, but mostly from the mid-major level. In football though, both NC State and Boston College made a push. "A lot of people started calling, but everyone was confused," Cato-Bishop said. "They all thought I was playing basketball." When Cato-Bishop arrived at NC State, he admitted he thought about trying to play two sports for the Wolfpack. "But I saw myself starting to get big, gaining weight, growing out, so that's when I decided it was time for me to let go and be a fan, and watch and cheer on," Cato-Bishop said. "It's still hard. I have friends that play in the NBA or in a professional league. Basketball was my first love. It was the reason why I played sports. "It was kind of an avenue for me to relieve my stress." September 2013 ■ 31 30-32.Darryl Cato-Bishop.indd 31 8/23/13 3:03 PM