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W BY MIKE SCANDURA HERE DOES ONE START when discussing Bob Cat- zen, who attended the Uni- versity of Virginia for two years in the mid-1940s? Might it be that were it not for Catzen, lacrosse — which was disbanded after the 1932 season — may not have been restored as a varsity sport? Might it be that at the age of 83, he's as athletic as men half his age? Might it be that the time he spent at UVa helped him become a successful business- man — which he still is? Take your pick and you wouldn't be wrong, regardless of what you choose. Catzen enrolled at UVa in 1946. After playing junior varsity football for one year, he realized "… how ill-equipped I was as a football player and retired." That led him to practicing lacrosse in un- used squash courts and a subsequent meeting with Captain Norton Pritchett, who was the director of athletics. "I soon became aware that UVa would not field a [lacrosse] team in the spring of 1947," 22 ◆ CAVALIER CORNER Catzen said. "With nothing to lose, I went to [Pritchett] and asked: 'Does the honor system hold with the athletics department?' I advised him that, when I interviewed at the university, I was told there would be a lacrosse team and that had I known there was not going to be one, I'd have gone elsewhere. "He said to come back next week." Catzen did and Prichett told him that if he could get 35 men to sign up, he would "guarantee a schedule." After "scouring the fraternity houses" and running an ad in the College Topics (the precursor to Cavalier Daily), Pritchett's re- quirement was met. But that didn't mean lacrosse bore any resemblance to the sport that eventually became a national power. "To say the university was caught short is an understatement," Catzen said. "Our hel- mets were JV football helmets with masks tied to the front. Defensemen were issued welder's gloves and we played our first game in hot, woolen, long-sleeved football jerseys. We wore white T-shirts with paste-on num- bers in our following games. "Our coach [the late Randy Coleman] was a law student. Our games were played in the bowl across the street from the old gym." Lacrosse was upgraded to varsity status in 1948. And in one memorable game versus Johns Hopkins, Catzen made 35 saves — which is a school record that he shares with Bo Moore. "Hopkins scored 15 goals, and combined with the 35 saves, it meant there was a shot on goal every minute plus what they missed," Catzen recalled. When Catzen's father passed away af- ter his sophomore year, he withdrew from UVa and went home to Baltimore to work in the family's corrugated container business. Eventually he got into construction manage- ment and then property development. "I spend more than half of my time try- ing to breathe life into a small, bio-tech company," Catzen said. "We have a patent to turn any cellulose-containing material into a product that behaves very much like petroleum. "Before [I entered the business world], the culture at UVa was very much centered around the honor system which, in turn, put a lot of responsibility on the individual for his own acts. It was important in running a busi-