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Zen Kato.

And that’s the way the afternoon went. Calls were put out. In due time they came back because these men wanted to talk about Kato — talk about what he meant to them, their careers and their time with the Lions.

He’s gone now, dead at 53 which is far too young. But for most of his 40 years with the club, he was the beating heart of the Lions, the CFL team’s conscience and institutional memory, the gatekeeper of its secrets.

Photo by Jason Payne / PROVINCE

He was listed as the team’s equipment manager. His driver’s licence said he was Ken Kasuya. But that job title and that name were largely irrelevant. He was the team’s counsellor, its sports psychologist, its mediator, the vice-president in charge of getting things done.

Mostly, he was Kato and he was loved.

“Every year he had 50 kids to look after and 50 kids who wanted something different,” said Paul McCallum. “I always wondered how he could remember it all and keep everything straight. He was amazing.”

“When former players came back they came back to see Kato,” said Travis Lulay. “He was the constant. Kato transcended time.”

The recently retired quarterback does not exaggerate. An East Van kid, Kato first joined the Lions in 1980 as a 13-year-old volunteer ball boy. He and Ed Georgica would ride their bikes to Empire Stadium, then off to whatever grass field the Lions were using that day. He didn’t get paid much, about $100 a month at the beginning.

But it was and always would be his dream job.

Photo by Ric Ernst / Postmedia News Files

He was named the equipment manager in 1996. He has five Grey Cup rings. He was inducted with Reichelt into the Lions’ Wall of Fame in 2015. He was there when B.C. Place Stadium was packed. He was there when the Lions went into bankruptcy. He was there for the Hall of Famers and the franchise icons. He was there for the scrubs and the thousands who never made it out of training camp.