Football As a Family Affair for Tyler Catalina Atlanta Journal-Constitution By Chip Towers Published Tuesday, October 25, 2016 Hurricane Matthew broke the streak. Before that calamitous storm scraped the Southeast coastline on Oct. 8, Kim Catalina had attended every single sporting event that her son Tyler had participated in during his lifetime. His older brother, too, for that matter. The hurricane eventually postponed the Georgia-South Carolina game until Sunday, a day later than scheduled. It also prevented Kim Catalina from making it out of Logan International Airport. “United (Airlines) called us a day previous and said they were canceling flights out of Boston,” she said. “So, with that being said, it’s the only game I have ever missed since our children put on a uniform, going back to T-ball. That is a fact.” Tyler Catalina is Georgia’s starting left offensive tackle. He’s a 6-foot-6, 330-pound senior by football eligibility and a graduate transfer from Rhode Island. He left his home in Worcester, Mass., and came to UGA to answer the Bulldogs’ call for help on the offensive line and get a taste of SEC football. Worcester is a city of about 181,000 people 40 miles west of Boston. Kim and her husband, Anthony “Tony” Catalina Sr., were all for this. It meant that their youngest son would play football and attend college 1,000 miles away. But they decided early on that was their problem, not Tyler’s. So they’d just deal with the logistics themselves and figure out what they’d have to do to get to games. That has manifested itself into what has been a seemingly endless journey of a lifetime. And while it is coming at considerable trouble — and expense — the Catalinas wouldn’t have it any other way. Other than the South Carolina game, she has missed little. And Tony Catalina and a friend made the drive to Columbia, so there were Catalinas in attendance at the game. Kim Catalina is the driving force behind mobilizing this clan. Shortly after Tyler signed with Georgia last February, she looked at UGA’s football schedule and booked trips to all 12 regular-season games. She’s a meticulous planner and keeps a binder that holds every detail. And not just for her. She plans also for Tony, some of his friends, an occasional grandmother or a grandfather, and so often, Tyler’s best friend, Matthew Le-Blanc. All of them wear No. 72 Georgia jerseys with “Catalina” stitched on the back, which makes for quite a sight when they’ve congregated at a tailgate. What makes the Catalinas’ support of Tyler particularly compelling is the internal family dynamics. The Catalinas have been divorced for years. In fact, Kim Catalina often travels to games with her boyfriend, John Bishop. He’s a Worcester policeman and a friend of Tony’s. They grew up as friends. “Everybody gets along,” Kim Catalina said. “We do holidays, birthdays, graduations, football games. I think every divorced couple with children should get along. You have to be role models for your kids. It is the ideal situation for everybody. ... We embrace the family unit, the meaning of family. We don’t like having to share, where you go here for
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half a day and there for half a day. We do everything together.” And they have a good time doing it. The general routine is they all leave Boston on Friday and head to wherever Georgia is playing that weekend. When it’s in Athens, they’ll all pile in at Tyler’s two-bedroom apartment. Tyler’s room always is available because the team stays together at a hotel the night before games. “They love it just as much as I do,” Tyler said of the SEC football scene. “Up North, we don’t get this kind of atmosphere for football. Them getting to travel to the different states where we play every week is awesome. They love it.” Tyler shares his Athens apartment with his older brother by just more than a year. Tony Jr. took a year off from his job as a high school coach and teacher and is working part-time as a quality-control assistant in UGA’s football office. The boys’ mom also took a hiatus from her job. She has worked for many years at the same Worcester car dealership. But once she started to map out the travel and the hours, she knew she wouldn’t be able to give her employers the dedication they deserved. So she convinced them to give
her the fall off. “I’m going to be in Athens almost the whole month of November,” she said. “I’m not coming back until after the (Senior) Gala (in December). I already bought the dress! Like I said, you only live once.” As for paying for it all, Kim Catalina jokes that she’ll worry about that later. While the pomp and circumstance and tradition of SEC football has been fun to experience, the Catalinas have had to deal with the other side of it as well. The season hasn’t gone as well as the Bulldogs had hoped. And while Tyler achieved his initial objective, which was to earn the job as Georgia’s starting left tackle, the performance of the offensive line has been blamed for a lot for the Bulldogs’ woes. The family is all excited about the next destination. The Catalinas have heard all about “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” so they’re going to make the most out of the trip. The plan is to fly to West Palm Beach and spend a few days there before venturing up Interstate 95 for the game. “We’re going to go down and make it a week of it,” Kim Catalina said. “We’ll drive up refreshed, see the game, drive back down, spend a few more days and fly out right into Worcester. You know what? It’s awesome!”