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TechnographFormer Illini tennis player Kosta serves up comedy
By Eric Chima
Posted: 11/1/06 Section: Sports
Michael Kosta plays to a crowd with a cool confidence born of hundreds of college and professional tennis matches. He has never made it to the top of the game, but he has won his share of tournaments, and for a moment even this pressure-packed situation seems like just another third set.
But this is a comedy club, not a tennis court. Kosta opens his mouth and a joke tumbles out, the crowd roars with laughter, and the illusion is broken. The tennis player has somehow become a stand-up comedian, wielding a microphone instead of a racquet. He's not just a comic, though - there is a book coming out, and some coaching on the side, and the TV show he dreams of hosting. His is a life ripe with aspirations, and it seems he could pick a new one at any time.
"It doesn't make sense to me sometimes," Kosta said. "And it certainly doesn't make sense to my parents."
At 26, Kosta still looks like an athlete on stage. His short brown hair tops an angular face, and the height that once let him launch booming serves now leaves him towering over his fellow comics. For a time, tennis seemed like all he would ever do. After a dominant junior career that included two Michigan state championships, Kosta chose the University of Illinois over the team he had grown up cheering for, the Michigan Wolverines. With the Illini, he quickly racked up wins, placing seventh all-time in singles victories at the school and winning the regular season Big Ten championship every year. By the time he graduated in 2002 he had spent 20 years preparing to be a professional tennis player.
The tour waited, but it would not be kind.
As soon as their final team competition ended, Kosta and fellow Illinois graduate Nathan Zeder went straight to Mexico for their first professional event. When they arrived, the courts were still blank cement without lines. Their hotel had no air conditioning, so Kosta took freezing showers each night and tried to sleep before he started sweating again. He lost in the first round of the singles tournament and made the quarterfinals of the doubles draw, earning $150 - not nearly enough to offset the $800 he spent to get there. By the end of the trip, Zeder was suffering from diarrhea.
But this is a comedy club, not a tennis court. Kosta opens his mouth and a joke tumbles out, the crowd roars with laughter, and the illusion is broken. The tennis player has somehow become a stand-up comedian, wielding a microphone instead of a racquet. He's not just a comic, though - there is a book coming out, and some coaching on the side, and the TV show he dreams of hosting. His is a life ripe with aspirations, and it seems he could pick a new one at any time.
"It doesn't make sense to me sometimes," Kosta said. "And it certainly doesn't make sense to my parents."
At 26, Kosta still looks like an athlete on stage. His short brown hair tops an angular face, and the height that once let him launch booming serves now leaves him towering over his fellow comics. For a time, tennis seemed like all he would ever do. After a dominant junior career that included two Michigan state championships, Kosta chose the University of Illinois over the team he had grown up cheering for, the Michigan Wolverines. With the Illini, he quickly racked up wins, placing seventh all-time in singles victories at the school and winning the regular season Big Ten championship every year. By the time he graduated in 2002 he had spent 20 years preparing to be a professional tennis player.
The tour waited, but it would not be kind.
As soon as their final team competition ended, Kosta and fellow Illinois graduate Nathan Zeder went straight to Mexico for their first professional event. When they arrived, the courts were still blank cement without lines. Their hotel had no air conditioning, so Kosta took freezing showers each night and tried to sleep before he started sweating again. He lost in the first round of the singles tournament and made the quarterfinals of the doubles draw, earning $150 - not nearly enough to offset the $800 he spent to get there. By the end of the trip, Zeder was suffering from diarrhea.
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