What would Cat Baby say?
By Jock Lauterer
Adviser, Carrboro Commons
Jock Lauterer photo
Cat Baby would have loved the return of high school football to Carrboro.
That’s right, The inaugural football game on Aug. 31 at the new Carrboro High School off Smith Level Road was not the first high school football game played in Carrboro.
Not by a long shot. Back in my day, the downtown Chapel Hill High School, located at the site of today’s University Square, had no football field of its own. We had to truck across town to venerable old Lion’s Park off Fidelity Street in Carrboro for our “home” games.
An apartment complex now occupies the site of that Spartan athletic venue, as I remember it: a humble field and simple bleachers ringed by a corrugated iron fence.
But it was home to the Wildcats, and, to return to the theme, “Cat Baby” — the ubiquitous town character, unquenchable Chapel Hill High School sports fan and veteran newspaper boy, George Cannada.
Cat Baby may not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but what he lacked in mental firepower, he made up for with loyalty, steadfastness and his own brand of humor.
How Cat Baby got his handle, you’d have to ask local historian extraordinaire Bland Simpson to be sure. Maybe it had to do with the ‘50s pop expression of “cool cat.” Or maybe it came from the Wildcats’ team name, shortened to “Cats.” And since George was the quintessential CHHS fan, perhaps it was he who made the linguistic leap. He said “Cat Baby” all the time, so that’s what we called him.
Who really knows? What every Chapel Hill High School kid from our era does know is that the sound of Caaaaaaaaaaat! could only come from one person.
And that evolved into Caaaaaaaat Baaabbeeeee!
And then, Whattaya say Cat Baby!
This eponymous greeting was invariably issued from a generous mouth half-filled with “chawin” tobacco or a cigar, and a merry look on the big man’s face.
Newcomers to Chapel Hill-Carrboro may be mystified how a simple paperboy could become a local legend. (Check out Cat Baby’s framed photo hanging over the bar at the Carolina Coffee Shop). Just ask Chapel Hill natives of a certain age to regale you with a Cat Baby story; I think we all have at least one.
In any event, before he died at age 58 in 1993, George Cannada left his indelible mark on this community.
For now, we’ll stick to the high school football theme, because that’s the subject of the week: How Cat Baby would have loved a new high school in his hometown of Carrboro!
Back in the early ‘60s, we Chapel Hill Wildcats had no real mascot, no live growling wildcat on a chain nor any furry foam-rubber critter look-alike prancing around the sidelines. The fact is, we didn’t need a mascot like that.
We had Cat Baby!
And Cat Baby’s crowning moment of joy, a ritual that would send us students into paroxysms of laughter and glee, would occur at the opening of every football game. You know the drill: the band plays the fight song; the team bursts onto the field, fronted by the cheerleaders…
But all this must be led by the team’s mascot. UNC has Rameses.
Dook has its Blue Devil. But for CHHS, we had, you guessed it, CAT BABY.
Running for all he was worth, head thrown back, generous button-busting stomach stuck out like a ship’s prow carving the waters, arms and legs pumping like pistons, running out in front of his team. What a sight.
I wonder if I wasn’t the only old poop out there at that first football game at the new Carrboro High School, imagining that I could see the merry ghost of George Cannada leading the way as the Jaguars took the field. Maybe a new generation will pick up his salutation for a school cheer.
Whaaaaddddaaaya Saaaay Caaaaaaaat Baaaaaaabbbbby!
A version of this column appeared earlier in the Carrboro Citizen on Sept. 6. Jock Lauterer teaches at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication where he may be reached at 962-6421 or jock@email.unc.edu
