MEET THE LEGENDS - EPISODE 2 [MICHAEL KATZ] Born November 14, 1944 New Haven, Connecticut Whenever talk of the sport’s best chest is debated, Mike Katz is a name that quickly enters the discussion. In addition to his mighty pecs, he is also remembered for one of the most famous scenes in Pumping Iron, when Ken Waller steals his T-shirt. Katz is one of the many iron warriors who were influenced by Steve Reeves. Watching the movie Hercules, young Katz was so inspired by the physique of 1947 Mr. America Reeves that he decided muscles should be part of his own future. Katz also found inspiration in Bill Pearl and later in Harold Helland, who became his training partner at Helland’s garage gym. Katz’s first bodybuilding competition was a 1959 teen YMCA event in Waterbury, Connecticut, and, like fellow 2007 inductee Boyer Coe, Katz spent many summer weekends competing in regional contests. The results of these events were not reported in the magazines of the time and are, therefore, lost. At the age of 18, he place 10th in the Mr. Nutmeg State and, in 1964, he was declared Mr. Teen Connecticut. After an All-American college football career, Katz went on to play in the NFL for the New York Jets, but a knee operation in 1968 ended his career and prevented him from being a part of the Jets’ winning Super Bowl team in that final year. Joining the IFBB in 1969, Katz placed second in the tall class at the Mr. American in New York City, and then won that title the following year. In September 1972, he won the IFBB Mr. World, as well as best back, best chest and most muscular at the White Plans County Center. In his first Mr. Olympia in 1976, Katz placed second in the heavyweight class. He then took a few years off from competing – during which time he made guest-posing appearances – before wrapping up his competitive career with a 15th-place finish at the 1981 Mr. O. After his bodybuilding career ended, Katz kept busy – he was the first person of fame or notoriety to work with Eunice Kennedy Shriver when she began Special Olympics projects in New Haven, and his World Gym East was the first franchise organized after Joe Gold began offering them. The gym name changed to Planet Fitness in 2004. Katz, who has bachelors and master’s degrees in health and physical education, and a pre-doctorate in administration and supervision, retired in 1999 from Hamden High School, where he had been teaching for 33 years. He stays in touch with his bodybuilding roots by judging contests, and he has judged the Olympia several times. He still trains four or five times per week and runs his gym. =>>> THE LEGEND SPEAKS The sport of bodybuilding had changed from the golden era when the money came in. The same thing applies to the golden age of football because before you had money all you really had was each other. But in football they had the acceptance of the public so if you werent making much money you could at least hear 30,000 fans screaming for you. But with bodybuilding, all we had was ourselves, supporting each other and sticking up for each other and justifying what we were doing. Then at times wed have to defend ourselves against being called gay or narcissistic or muscle-bound or any of the other stereotypes that the public labeled us with. But football or baseball players at least didnt have to deal with that. So we had to stick together and there was, as you said, camaraderie even though we were competing against each other. And we did respect each other and socialize and even help each other, even if we were competing the following day. Wed all jumped back and forth helping each other train. The thing thats interesting is that when I listen to older guys like myself I wonder if they arent living in the past. Its as if their time was the most special time and no one else can share what they had. But what Id like to say is that Im not a dinosaur. Im older; yes, and I dont compete; thats correct. But Im very much involved in the sport and Im very much involved in helping certain athletes make health judgments, financial judgments, and sportsmanship judgments. The wisdom that Ive got and the mistakes Ive made, as well as the things Ive done right, all go into this. And I tell them that our Golden Age was wonderful and I would never want to compete in any other age of bodybuilding. But the point is that this wasnt the only period of value because there were guys like Bill Pearl before me and guys like Coleman who have competed after me. So the question is, What can we take from each generation? From Grimek and Reeves and Pearl to Arnold and myself and Louie and then Haney and then on the Yates and Coleman eras, I think everybody can learn something from everyone else. They can learn some good stuff from us and we can learn from them. The point is that Im happy about when I competed and feel very fulfilled about what Ive done and whatever young guys today can learn from me I want to give them. I dont want to be angry and old and grumpy and think that my generation of bodybuilders is the only one should be admired. We can all learn how to be better people from each other. Bill Pearl is still out there and active and I admire him tremendously. Hes promoting bodybuilding in a very positive way and, obviously, Arnolds doing his thing and Im doing my thing and were all working toward the improvement and success of the sport. I think probably, when I was very young, my idol was Steve Reeves. You know, when you go to the Saturday matinee and your throwing popcorn and having a good time with your buddies and probably driving the usher nuts and instead of seeing The Three Stooges or Our Gang, you all of a sudden see Hercules and youre like, Oh my God! Youre just going through puberty and youre trying to find yourself and then, there it is. Im sure it was the same for guys of your generation who, at 9, 10, 11 and 12 years old first saw Conan with Arnold and got inspired. So for me it was Reeves. But after I started buying the magazines, after I was introduced to the movie part of it, it became John Grimek. So it was initially Reeves and Reg Park and then Grimek from the magazines. But finally, after I started reading about it, it was Bill Pearl. He was big and thick and beautifully symmetrical and he never even had to pose. He had certain poses of course, but I think he was one guy who didnt even have to pose. When I started getting to the point in my career when I was going up to Holyoke with Ed Jubinville up in Mountain Park, I was just starting to devote all of my training to bodybuilding. Before that I was playing with the Jets and could only bodybuild part time. That was 68 when I was injured, which was the year before they won the Superbowl. So my football career ended with the knee operation. I had had two goals when I was a kid and one of them was to be a teacher. I was inspired by my health education teacher, Mr. Girosa. So once I stopped playing football I became a full-time teacher and I had a wonderful lifestyle where I would get out of school at 2:00 and could go to the Y and train there from 2:30-5:00 or 2:30-6:00 while everybody else was working. So I was able to make a living and also work hard as a bodybuilder. Before I met Arnold I went into Weiders contests because the AAU wouldnt let a professional athlete compete in their amateur contests even though I was playing football, it was because I was paid to play football. But this was also a time when they wouldnt have any black Mr. Americas. Sergio couldnt win the Mr. America with them so he went to Joe and the IFBB. Everybody that wanted to get a fair shake went to Weider. So I got to compete in the IFBB version. The first time was in 67 and I won Best Chest. Those shows were all at the Brooklyn Academy of Music or Town Hall and promoted by Tom Minichiello, he was a great, great guy, along with Ed Jubinville. Anyway, early on I was all chest. As a football player I didnt need giant calves or 32 thighs. They wouldnt have helped me in football. So, my natural bodyparts that came easy grew bigger and the parts I didnt need for football didnt. So early on I didnt have the proportion or symmetry but I was one of the fastest guys in the NFL. At 265 I ran a 4.6(sec) 40. The backs werent running that speed. Plus I was the strongest and biggest guy on the field. But nobody really lifted weights back then. They didnt understand what I was doing. They thought theyd all get musclebound and slow but here I was, getting big and strong and fast from it. Still the coaches told them not to lift. I knew that the coaches didnt know what they were talking about. I could also dunk a basketball from a standing position. At 61 and 260-270 I could dunk a basketball with two hands. I did some pretty unprecedented things. But today there are a lot of big, talented guys whove benefitted from weight training. Youll see 68 linemen today who werent talented enough at basketball but who are incredible athletes on the football field. Back then a 200 pound athlete was considered big. My chest is ranted as being among the best of all time- even to this day. This is a product of training and genetics. I think the tip of my sternum, is very high, compared to most people. So I think the skeletal genetics create the potential. Its like Platzs thighs. Why doesnt everybody have thighs like his if theyre all doing the same exercises? Or Schwarzeneggers arms. I still think that he has the best arms of all time. He just has that certain bicep and roundness to his tricep thats one of a kind. So I think Im just fortunate, skeletally, to have my structure, along with a lot of pullovers and learning to control my diaphragm. Arnold would always make fun of me because he thought I was holding my breath. He had this little Volkswagen and no money, except what Weider paid him and he had this little third floor walkup in Santa Monica with Franco. So hed tell me to wait in his car while he went in so Id fall asleep. Then hed come out to check on me to see if my chest deflated when I was sleeping. But it wasnt and thats how he knew that I wasnt holding my breath. That was his little trick. So Arnold and I had a really good relationship. Im not saying we were best friends because he had Franco and I wasnt there all year. But the little but that I was there he took a liking to me and we just trained together. He didnt like training legs and I did so it was perfect. He knew he had to train legs but didnt get too excited about it. But that was one of my strongest points. Even though my legs werent like Platzs my legs were extremely strong and I pushed him. We were the same height and the same weight and he loved to aggravate me and I was a good target to be annoyed, but not come up swinging. (Laughing) Our personalities just meshed and we became real good friends and training partners and so I learned a lot from him. He learned a lot from Weider and all of the great California bodybuilders out there. So I learned from him and then brought all of the information back to the east coast where I disseminated it to the people back in Connecticut and New York. I think by virtue of the fact that bodybuilding is so much more popular today, there are so many more gyms and health clubs. It enables people in general to get off the street and get healthy. Today you dont have to face the stigma we had to when it came to wanting to have a nice body. So now that more people are lifting weights there are more competitors in bodybuilding shows. There are also more drug-free alternative bodybuilding shows. People are much more concerned about nutrition and supplements. Youve got to look to Weider. Even as hes gotten older hes still working, with his brother Ben, to promote fitness and bodybuilding throughout the world. Theyre helping to educate the public about bodybuilding. =>>> SOME OF HIS QUOTES I dont want to die just another slob-with my name on a gravestone someplace. I want to die with my name somewhere at the top. Make a little dent in the sport Im in, so that maybe forty years from now people will say, Hey, that guy was Mr.America. This would give me enough happiness to die with a smile on my face. - Mike Katz I wont do anything else until I win Mr.Universe. If I have train ten years, Im going to win it. I dont know why I say that because the education is just as important, but I could not be happy right now going out as a loser. I placed third in Mr.Universe last year. If I went out as a loser it would make the ten years Ive spent in bodybuilding a complete waste. - Mike Katz I want to be bigger than everybody else, but I wouldnt want to be so big that people cant accept it. For instance, if you come in with 30-inch-arms, even your own peers arent going to accept that. I wouldnt want to be that way. I wouldnt want to infinitely become unreal. - Mike Katz
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 08:38:28 +0000
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