Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

How are you with condoms?

Anything you might know about them could help No. 1-ranked Ohio State win college football's national championship.

If Buckeyes junior All America linebacker Andy (the Big Kat) Katzenmoyer does a lousy job on his summer-school paper about condoms, he might not pass his AIDS awareness course. If he flunks AIDS awareness, he can't play. And if he can't play, Ohio State's entire season could go splat.

Also, do you know anything about golf? That's another course Katzenmoyer has to pass. Also, music. Golf, music and condoms. Sounds like a weekend with the President.

"It's my fault," says Katzenmoyer. "I know if I don't play, it'll be all my fault."

It's funny about Katzenmoyer. He can fend off three linemen the size of small duplexes and grab a 230-pound running back by the bottom lip and plant him like a rhododendron, but he can't seem to get his butt out of bed for class. That's why he had to go to summer school in June and July (he passed tennis, communications and Arabic culture) and why he's there again this month.

August is the Big Kat's last chance. If the grades for his three intellectually daunting courses (Golf 1, Music 140, AIDS: What Every College Student Should Know), which are due on Sept. 4, don't raise his cumulative GPA to at least 2.0, then the man who may be the best player in the nation will be academically ineligible from Sept. 5, when Ohio State opens its season at West Virginia, until mid-December.

(Aside to Andy: Academically ineligible is French for world's largest clipboard boy.)

Which is why, if I were an Ohio State fan, I would have stood outside his apartment window every morning at 6:30 with a brick, hot coffee and, if necessary, Metallica.

"My only concern," says Ohio State coach John Cooper, "is that if they're in [summer-school] classes, they're not on the practice fields, and that affects us, because they're behind."

Then again, maybe if Cooper had made sure more players had done well in classes during the school year, he wouldn't have three starters on the academic ledge now.

Andy, these teachers, they're not kidding around. "If he deserved it, yeah, I wouldn't hesitate to flunk him," says the golf instructor, Clive Pope. "No hesitation whatsoever. I'm from New Zealand, so football doesn't mean all that much to me. Now, rugby might be another matter."

Andy! How tough can it be? The only thing you have to read in golf are the greens!

"If I had to, yes, I'd flunk him," says the AIDS awareness professor, Dr. Randi Love. (Seriously, that's her name.) Not that Love would want to. "I didn't know who he was," she says, "but my husband did. If I don't pass him, it threatens our married life."

AIDS awareness is dangerous because it meets at 7:30 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. Most mornings at 7:30, Katzenmoyer is dreaming of reaching into a maize-and-blue helmet and pulling out a Michigan player's skull. To pass AIDS awareness, Katzenmoyer will have to write two papers, take two exams and complete two "reaction" projects, one of which is to go out and research condoms, meticulously recording their variety, size, color and cost and the reaction of the 16-year-old Rite Aid clerk when the Big Kat says, "Uh, do you have a fitting room?"

(Aside to Andy: Looking into your sock drawer doesn't count as condom field research.)

But the biggest roadblock to Ohio State's national championship hopes this season is the music class. Hey, it ain't Principles of Lunch. This one must be a bear. It's worth five credits, and the teacher wouldn't return any of our 10 messages. Not a good sign. Katzenmoyer is probably studying everything from baroque to disco.

(Aside to Andy: I'll use baroque in a sentence. If you don't get your butt to Music 140, a whole lot of guys who bet on Ohio State are going to go baroque.)

Forget November. Forget the bowls. This is pressure. This is when it counts. Katzenmoyer's teammates, his fans and the whole college football-loving nation are counting on him.

"I'm not worried," says the Big Kat, bored.

Uh-oh. Is it too late to change the cover?

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Past Editions of Life of Reilly

Issue date: August 31, 1998