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Catfish will not, does not, cannot sit down.
Are you kidding? Catfish is all movement.
And mouth.
Orlando "Catfish" Pender Jr. is 82, born during World War II, raised in a family of share croppers in "North Crackalackin," he says.
"That's North Carolina," he explains with a wink.
Dressed all in Firebird red except for the black sneakers that never stop. There is a chair, right there, in the announcer's booth at Pearl-Cohn High School. But that chair might as well be his grave. Catfish will sit when he's dead.
Instead, the Pearl-Cohn stadium announcer for more than
three decades bops around the booth, smacking the wall on a bad play, leaping to celebrate a touchdown, lunging to slap high fives with the scoreboard operator.
You've never heard a stadium announcer like Catfish.
"Get that fire started," he growls at the defense. "The fire has started. Let it buuuurrrrrnnnnn."
He's singing, dancing, smiling ... disappointed, depressed, mumbling ... the entire game, depending on the success or failure of his beloved Pearl-Cohn Firebirds.
Catfish says he announces football games like James Brown, the energetic belter of songs back in the day. All sweat, grunts and gyrations.
Catfish holds the microphone to his chest and begins a slow rumble.
"Come on ... Come on ... Come on ... Pearl-Cohn kickoff team. STAY IN YOUR LANE." He delivers that last line in the high baritone range.
And oh goodness if somebody fumbles, especially if that fumble is recovered by the Firebirds, Catfish breaks into a scream that sounds like someone set off fireworks in a thunderstorm.
"FUMBLEROOSKI," he yells.
"Fumblerooski is my favorite," Catfish says in a calmer moment.
There are other Catfish signature vocal gems. For the last two seasons, the Firebirds quarterback has been L.J. Funk, who appears to have been put on this earth just so Catfish, upon the completing of a Funk touchdown pass, can break into song.
"We want the Funk, gotta have that Funk," he sings like George Clinton sang in the disco days as the Pearl-Cohn crowd goes wild. Catfish dances around the booth like he's just won at karaoke night.
'Million dollar view'
There is a church choir in his background, as you might guess, and encounters with Chuck Berry, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other music icons.
Catfish met The Tennessean on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, telling his life story while he paced the floor of his home in North Nashville, the one with the "million dollar view" of downtown. Standing on his front porch, he can see the AT&T (Batman) Building.
He said the place was overgrown with weeds so high no one could see the "For Sale" sign when he bought it.
He owns "Catfish Moving Company," with four trucks and 12 employees. He's been married twice and is currently single. He has five children, 15 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
And he's got songs. He points to his back room, a man cave, of sorts, where he keeps his songs, awards and pictures that go way back.
"I've got 250 songs," he says, most are gospel tunes. "I've got four songs in my head right now. 'I'm a soldier in the Army of the Lord.'"
You wouldn't know it by watching this happy blur of a man. But he has had to lean on his religion in recent years. Since the one tragic moment that stopped Catfish from moving.
The moment from which he is just now recovering.
How did Catfish get his nickname?
Catfish bends at the waist, arms dangling in front of him. He's standing in his living room, reenacting the story that got him his nickname.
He had 11 siblings, and when you grow up on a tobacco, corn, cotton and barley farm in Wilson, North Carolina, you are responsible to bring home something for dinner. At first, he tried a homemade fishing pole with a bent safety pin as a hook. But he didn't have a cork to make the hook float, so he scrapped that idea.
That's why he's bent over in his living room, mimicking his movements as a child. Arms dangling in a stream, he would wait motionless until he could grab a catfish with his bare hands.
"You didn't come home empty handed," he said.
Just about as long as he can remember, he's been Catfish.
He played high school football, but he was more in love with Sam Cooke and the Everly Brothers. He breaks into song, "That's the sound of the men, working on the chain gang." Just like Sam Cooke.
It was 1963 when a 19-year-old Catfish went to Philadelphia to see the big city. That's when he said he heard the words, "Go in the service now." He said it was the voice of God.
Think about the timing. Catfish joined the Marines just before the buildup in Vietnam. He said he became a chauffeur. His job took him to Naples, Nice, Palermo, Istanbul, Beruit. "I went to Greece," he said. "I'm walking in the paths of Plato and Socrates."
"If I would have gone to Vietnam, I would be dead," he said.
He said he ended his service in 1967 after a year in the Military Police in Quantico, Virginia.
Kaleidoscope eyes
In the 1960s and '70s, he found himself bouncing around America. In New York City's Greenwich Village, he formed "The King Biscuit Blues Band" and he covered Muddy Waters songs. He said he was on the circuit with Hendrix, Joplin and Otis Redding.
In San Francisco, he formed a new band "The New Wave."
"I was the Black Paul McCartney," he said.
He tried LSD once. He said his eyes became kaleidoscopes, and he sat still. "I couldn't move," he said.
It was the fear of what drugs might do to him, and the deaths of Jimi, Janis and Jim Morrison that convinced him to settle down.
A Grammy nomination
Catfish chose Nashville as the place to raise his family. There was Jaqueline, Jalonda, Orlando III, Apryll and Briana.
Nashville, he knew, was a good place to play gospel music. He joined the Born Again Church on West Trinity Lane and sang in the choir.
That choir was a powerhouse. They made a live album featuring gospel star CeCe Winans with other stars like Israel Houghton, Desmond Pringle, Steve Crawford and Da'dra Greathouse.
And Orlando "Catfish" Pender Jr.
The album was nominated for a Grammy in 2004.
As he talks, he has pride in his eyes.
'I had feathers'
It just so happened that the Born Again Church meetings were in the Pearl-Cohn High School auditorium.
At first, Catfish volunteered to be a sideline videographer for the Firebirds football team.
Then he became the mascot. He was in his 50s, but there was Catfish jumping around the sideline in a bird hat with red wings.
"I fell in love with Pearl-Cohn," he said. "And yes, I had feathers."
He said coach Maurice Fitzgerald loved his voice, so he asked Catfish to be the public address announcer.
Catfish brought an energy to the booth that may be unfamiliar to fans who only hear monotone "First and 10" from most stadium announcers.
"I gotta do me," Catfish said. He loves when Pearl-Cohn whips an opponent, and still the opposing fans thank him for the energy he brings.
"The gift I have is my voice," he said. "I'm not saying something that's stale ... Elvis wanted to be the best. James Brown wanted to be the best. I want to be the best at something."
Pearl-Cohn football statistician Calvin Peters said Catfish brings the entertainment.
"He means the world to Pearl-Cohn," Peters said. "He brings a certain flair like no one else. His sayings and quotes are legendary."
'Denial, grief and torment'
Catfish stops when he talks about Janaye.
His voice is a whisper.
His granddaughter was in the Pearl-Cohn marching band, another in the long line of his relatives raised on Firebird football. She played the piccolo, following in the footsteps of her mother Jalonda, who played the clarinet.
Janaye was 31 in 2023 when she died due to a fentanyl overdose.
"I wasn't prepared for it," Orlando Pender Jr. says.
The happiest man you will ever meet didn't know how to deal with it.
"I went through denial, grief and torment," he said. "My heart was finally broken."
As football season begins again, he said Catfish has come back.
"He has sustained his spirit," said Pearl-Cohn head football coach Tony Brunetti. "He has a strong mind, a strong soul."
A smile appears on Catfish's face.
"I feel invincible," he says. "But I am not."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pearl-Cohn announcer Catfish is James Brown of high school football
