DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709110457

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

KOZAK IS HIS NAME, WINNING SOFTBALL TITLES IS HIS GAME

Picture George Steinbrenner, only younger, thinner, with a ruddy mustache and reddish-blond hair curling behind his ears, and you have Portsmouth lawyer Warren Kozak.

All right, there's no physical resemblance whatsoever between the two. Sue me. (Just kidding, Warren.) The simile still works, though. Because while the former fancies himself baseball's King George, Kozak, 40, is without question a softball monarch, annually hiring and operating the area's best slow-pitch softball team, and one of the finest on the national ``A'' level - a step below the highest ``major'' teams.

Aside from winning the Tidewater Championship for the third consecutive season, Kozak's group, sponsored in part by its namesake Harrison's Moving Co., finished third in two ``A'' World Series' this summer, with another Series on tap this weekend in Indiana.

Then last weekend, Kozak and his boys, older men in this case, stepped out into a little something different. A bunch of savvy veterans arranged for the occasion, such as area legends Dewey Fussell and Jay Smith, made a mockery of the 12-team field at the Over-40 National Softball Association World Series in Burlington, N.C.

Harrison's romped to the crown in five games, ending each early by the 12-run slaughter rule, and outscoring foes 168-64. Featuring players from here to Richmond and Fairfax, Harrison's trailed in the championship game 12-11 entering the bottom of the fourth.

It scored 26 runs in the inning.

Case closed.

And one more trophy to pack into Kozak's Portsmouth home.

``My house looks like a museum,'' Kozak says. ``I must have two, three hundred trophies.''

He's been collecting since the mid-80s, when Kozak, a former football player at Guilford College, started running his own team in between playing for others and working 60-hour weeks.

His involvement grew to where he managed a major team in 1995, flying around the country to play the best slow-pitch softball out there, at what turned out to be prohibitive expense.

Kozak dips into his own pocket every year - he prefers to keep the figures private - to supplement sponsorships and make his teams go. But the rigorous travel, as well as the cost, told him to find a more manageable pace.

Turns out A softball is it. Kozak still helps with the bills - Harrison's has cost about $120,000 overall this season, he says - and does so enthusiastically.

``I like it, but I'm not silly,'' Kozak says. ``I know guys who've gone broke over softball.''

Kozak, who plays a few nights a week locally but not on his A team, calls softball big fun, but at his level it's also big business. Though major players can make six figures a year, A players aren't getting rich. They are, however, getting their expenses paid and small salaries for weekend tournaments.

Kozak says he even flew one player in from Colorado all summer to play in tournaments.

``He's worth it,'' Kozak says.

Speaking of value, Kozak swears he enjoys the finer things, too, such as time spent with his wife of one year and his four-month old daughter. They're why he doesn't attend every tournament now, handing the reins to his partner Art Violi of Maryland.

Then there are his other passions, boating and bird hunting, that occupy those moments when he's not consumed with organizing another softball season.

``I'll get out of it eventually,'' Kozak says. ``It never stops. As soon as you finish one year, people want to know what you're going to do next year.''

Here are two guesses:

Kozak will win. And win big. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Warren Kozak calls softball big fun, but at his level, it is also

big business.

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