“The high school coach happened to be watching and I had no stick skills. I sucked,” Catie laughingly admitted. “But he saw how I ran and hustled and he brought me up to JV in eighth grade.

“And I sucked, but he just wanted to see effort and he pulled people up because of that,” she said.

At East Islip High School, Catie discovered she really did have talent in lacrosse. So she practiced, practiced, practiced.

St. Joseph’s College, close to home in Suffolk County, offered Catie a full academic and athletic scholarship to play soccer on its Division III team, but she turned the offer down. “I wanted to play either lacrosse and soccer or just lacrosse,” she said.

While searching for schools, Catie looked for good psychology programs and the camaraderie of the sports teams.

Her skills in lacrosse, the sport she originally hated, earned her an athletic scholarship to St. Bonaventure University’s Division I team.

“I really didn’t want to be this far away in the cold,” Catie said, “But we came up and the girls were just so funny and so kind and it was nice.”

At Bonaventure, Catie’s freshman year didn’t pan out as she had imagined. The coach who recruited her quit the summer before her first semester.

“There wasn’t fall ball really because nobody was getting the team together,” her mother said. “And she was used to having a focus –– she played three sports in high school.”

But Catie didn’t just sit tight; the busybody played club soccer and wrote for the school newspaper .

“I did a ton of different things because they always say ‘get involved!’ and I didn’t want to just sulk about it,” she said.

Catie concluded her first semester with a perfect grade-point average –– 4.0.
“In high school I really didn’t care –– I was the class clown,” Catie said. “I was so

nervous about doing well in college that I forced myself to try really, really hard.”
“She did call home a lot,” her mother said. “Once the team was together it was much

better .”
After a full spring season of lacrosse in which she played in all 14 games, started in five

and scored two goals, Catie again had a 4.0.
Over the next three seasons –– 48 games and five goals later –– Catie had started in every

game following her freshman season.
“Catie was a funny, upbeat force with her teammates,” said Christy Malone, former head

coach of women’s lacrosse at Bonaventure. “She knew when to pump up the players to work hard or when to crack a joke.”

“I was the clown on every team,” Catie said. “But I was able to receive criticism because I could take it.”

At 27, George continues to inspire Catie. The 2010 winner of Mr. Natural Philadelphia coached Catie through workout packets he put together for his University of Massachusetts teams as their strength and conditioning assistant director.

And her undergraduate GPA never wavered from 4.0.

Before her freshman year, Catie said her mom jokingly told her, “Remember Cate, ‘D’ for ‘Diploma.’”

She smirked at the memory. “My parents were hoping for me to get a ‘C’ or a ‘B,’” she said. “I got no pressure from them.”

Catie’s secret to balancing schoolwork, sports and a social life? Impeccable time management skills.