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Cathercist guitarist Taylor Roberts, center, at a show in Birmingham, Ala. on July 17, 2014.

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The stage is Taylor Roberts’ desk. And he never wants a chair.

The Cathercist guitarist is confident in saying the rest of the band – vocalist Zack Sawyer, guitarist Daniel Ferguson, bassist Mikhail Cintgran and drummer Matt Marciana – feel the same.

“We want to be rock stars obviously, but we want to do this comfortably, as a career,” Roberts said from Iron Horse Cafe in Birmingham, Ala. “This is what we’re good at. We can’t function in a 9 to 5 job at home. We love the open road and our goal is to stay true to what we love and do what we love.”

That’s where things are headed for a band Roberts labels “not too light, not to heavy.” The Gulfport, Miss. alternative/metal outfit has something for everybody he says and is touring in support of “As Hope Expires” and has dates that include much of the Gulf Coast and Alabama through September.

“Obviously we want to get overseas and do things like that, but we want a career,” Roberts said.

None of the members have jobs right now and they want to keep it that way. Octane picked up “If Anything At All” and you can see the video for “Disconnected” on the band’s website, Cathercist.com. Both albums – including 2011’s “Untimely Death of Zack Sawyer” are available on iTunes.

The band is paving – and paying – its own way, trying to jump in recent line with Coast successes Three Doors Down and Atomship representing Mississippi’s coast. That means producing a stage product that sends fans to the merch table. There are good nights and bad nights, but Roberts says most of the good nights come thanks to the energetic live show.

“We’re still able to stay on the road and that’s the most important part. People have been coming up, buying shirts and one thing that we emphasize to people is the merch aspect is how we survive,” Roberts said. “It’s a roof over our heads at night. It’s food in our stomach. It’s gas in our tank.”

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Tyson Lee spent his football career trying to figure out how to get into opposing defenses.

His post-football career is spent finding ways into schools to spread the Christian message he holds atop the football honors he wracked up as a quarterback at Columbus, Itawamba CC and Mississippi State.

Lee is back in Starkville, working with the MSU Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He works on campus and travels high school and junior high campuses in Oktibbeha and Lowndes Counties – maybe adding Winston next year.

“I help with FCA Huddles, mentor any way I can,” Lee said from June’s Tupelo (Miss.) Christian All-Star Football Camp.

Football is in the rear view, but as he showed at TCPS, his game is still a big part of who he is. So is his unashamed faith. And so is FCA, which despite more and more opposition to the Christian message in schools, has become a gateway.

“Now FCA has favor to get into a lot of the schools, so it’s so big we can take Christ into the schools,” Lee said, “get in these kids when they’re young, so when they get out of college, they’ve been developed, they’ve been impacted. Hopefully they’re serving the Lord by then.”

Lee had a remarkable career. At ICC, he became the first football student-athlete in school history to earn academic all-America and first-team all-America recognition in the same season. At Mississippi State, he made an immediate impact, starting eight games his first year on campus as a junior. He threw for a career 2,963 yards and 11 touchdowns.

His new job as an FCA staff representative is to aid anyone who wants to be part of FCA with the resources they need to have an active club at their particular school.

“We use athletics as a tool to take Christ in,” Lee said. “So we want to grab coaches, grab teachers, grab anybody that wants to be a part of our FCAs.”