For Oneonta’s Catan, one last
high school title is a dream denied

By GREG KLEIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

Last week, while section champions accepted their awards, and athletes across the region expressed thanks for being able to get back to competing for championships, the mood was different for one local player.

Arguably the best tennis player in the region, Oneonta senior Chris Catan watched as his classmates played playoff games and his peers on the court won titles. Section IV did not offer a post-season tennis tournament despite offering post-season events for other spring sports, including baseball, softball, lacrosse and track and field.

“I was very, very disappointed,” Catan said during a phone interview Thursday, June 17.

“At first, I was excited to be back out on the court for Oneonta,” Catan continued. “When I heard the news (about the section tournament), I was really upset. I thought to myself, ‘am I just here to practice?’”

The son of a former professional tennis player, Paul Catan, Chris took to his father’s sport when he was four-years old. He quickly became a prodigy.

“My dad introduced me to the game, but I sort of took off from there,” he said.

Catan made Oneonta’s varsity team as a seventh grader, and has been its top singles player throughout high school, winning Section IV Class C/D titles in 2018 and 2019, during his freshman and sophomore seasons.

Catan advanced to the state tournament in 2019, lost a first-round match in three sets, and then went 1-1 in the consolation bracket. He was expected to be a contender for a state title as an upperclassman, but lost the chance to compete in the the 2020 high school season and the 2021 section playoffs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Catan resumed his training and his club matches last year, as tennis adjusted to the pandemic. Catan trains in Saratoga at the YMCA and in Oneonta at the Otsego Tennis Club. And while high school tennis is not the highest level of play on the circuit, the Catans and his coach said they were disappointed that Chris did not have the chance to win his third section title, or to compete for the state title again.

“He is a legend in tennis at Oneonta High School,” his coach, Phyllis Orlowski said. “Yes, (it is) extremely disappointing that no one could put together sectionals, even after we volunteered many times to just do it.”

“All other regions within New York state had sectional tennis finals except Section IV,” Michelle Catan, Chris’s mom said. “We tried with other parents for almost two months to ‘push’ the section sports coordinator and the Section IV executive director to get it organized but no one would.

“We don’t know why no one would fight for the kids and get it organized, but yet all the other sections did,” she said.

Orlowski said she will continue to cheer on Catan, but she will miss his team leadership.

“Chris is one of the nicest, most polite, intelligent and caring young men I have ever met,” she said. “He is helpful and pleasant all the time. He has a kind and caring soul. Chris helped all of the OHS tennis team to learn the game. He was a role model.”

The Catans said they, too, would remember fondly the highlights of Chris’s high school career, including the title wins and the trip to the state tournament, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, home to the US Open Tennis Championship. In addition, Catan served as a ball boy for two years at the Open, as a freshman and a sophomore, which his mom said she will always remember.

“It was a dream come true,” she said. “I don’t know if (it was better) for him or for us to see him there! It was an awesome job and he got paid well for it and got to keep his US Open uniform too.”
Luckily for Catan, his playing days will continue. He will play tennis at Salisbury University on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The Sea Gulls are an NCAA Division III school that competes in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference.

Catan said he is setting his goals high.

“I hope I get a chance to start freshman year,” he said.