Assistant director reflects on career

College sports can open many doors for student athletes.

For Scott Cathcart, assistant athletic director of sports information at Cal State Long Beach, the opportunities have expanded into many other fields.

Football has always played an important role in Cathcart's life. His father played for the San Francisco 49ers in the late 1940s and early 1950s and later became Cathcart's high school football coach. An uncle refereed in the NFL and Cathcart's performance on the field for Santa Barbara City College earned him a scholarship to Fresno State University.

When a broken leg ended Cathcart's football career at Fresno State in the late 1970s, he realized he had to focus more on scholastics than athletics to secure a spot in the working world.

"After the injury, I sp ent most of my time studying so that I could keep my scholarship," Cathcart said. "I graduated with a degree in business administration from Fresno State, but when my parents house burned down just a month after I graduated, I became a carpenter and re built the house with my father and my two brothers."

A few months later Cathcart was given the opportunity to coach football and handle the media releases at his former junior college in Santa Barbara where he remained for the next three years.

He teamed up with a friend to start a tree-trimming business and continued to work as a carpenter until he realized that he wanted to pursue a different career.

"After I graduated, I was happy to just make some money. But when I turned 28, I realize d that I better find a job for the long run," Cathcart said.

He began to send his press releases and clips to numerous sports information directors in the Pac-10, Western Athletic Conference and Pacific Coast Athletic Association (now Big West) and finally landed a position as a graduate assistant with CSULB's sports information office in 1982.

Deemed insane by friends and relatives for selling his business and working as a graduate assistant at CSULB for $200 a month - after making $500 a week working his various jobs - Cathcart said he was happy that his career was heading in the right direction.

"During the 17 months at Long Beach, I took journalism classes and landed an internship with the sports section at the Los Angeles Times," Cathcart said. "I must have been the worst intern they've ever had, but I learned how a newspaper works and how the one night miracle called the Los Angeles Times or the Press-Telegram is created and delivered to your doorstep every morning."

After Cathcart finished his first stint at CSULB, he landed a job with the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Foundation, the administrative body for high school sports in California, in 1984.

Cathcart was contacted by Dave O'Brien, CSULB's athletic director, in February 1993, regarding the open position of head of sports information office. At first, Cathcart said he declined.

"I had earned my master's degree in athletic administration in 1991 at Azusa Pacific and my goal was to become an administrator at the CIF, but Dave (O'Brien) convinced me to take the job," Cathcart said. "He told me about all the great things that were going to happen at CSULB and got me really excited about the athletic program."

With the move from the Applied Arts and Sciences Building to the former University Extension Services complex, sports information has moved one step closer to its final home -The Pyramid.

"The Pyramid has really put us on the map from a college sport standpoint," Cathcart said. "We got great coaches here and good personalities to work with and I'm really happy that I made the move."