Grizzlies’ Zach Randolph Cries and Runs from Cats (Video)
By Josh Hill
Zach Randolph is big, bad man. At 260 pounds, he’s regarded as one of the toughest players in the NBA, so naturally he has an intense and insane phobia of one of the most terrifying and horrifying creatures to ever be put on this Earth.
Kittens.
“For some reason, I’m always thinking they’re going to scratch me.” Randolph said in a recent interview with ESPN. “If a cat walks up, I’m going, ‘Oh no, this dude about to scratch me — I know it!’ Cats scare the hell out of me. I love animals, but I’m no cat lover. Guys usually aren’t.”
Randolph recently appeared in the Animal Planet show ‘Pit Bulls and Parolees’ in which he helped rescue a pit bull that had become trapped in a storm drainpipe. Randolph even cried in the episode over the fact that a dog was trapped in a drainpipe and the very site upset him to the point of tears.
He failed to comment on whether or not those tears are full of fear when it comes to a cat, but that assumption isn’t very far off.
But sticking with the point, the Grizzlies forward said that he owns numerous dogs and that he particularly loves to help rehabilitate dogs that were used for fighting.
“I’m a dog lover — lover. I’m a spokesperson for the Memphis Humane Society. I like getting involved with the fighting dogs,” Randolph said. “This ain’t no overnight thing, it’s how I’ve always been. Now I got two Russian terriers. And I got two more in Russia that are four weeks old — not old enough to come out here yet. The two with me now, I got them from a breeder in Georgia and one in Wisconsin. They’re show dogs. I got a handler who shows them. They’re at a Florida show right now. When they’re not on the road, they’re with me. In the offseason, I’ll go to shows with them. It’s a great thing, man.”
Randolph says he loves dogs, and wants to squash the stereotype that athletes make horrible dog owners.
“It’s not fair,” he protested. “One athlete made a mistake. That doesn’t mean the rest of us are like that. Of course, where I grew up, everybody was doing that [dog fighting], but that doesn’t mean I’ll grow up and do the same thing.”
As long as it’s not a cat, it seems Randolph is just one bug cuddly monster.