The Competitive Edge

Tulane’s Michael Kogan is Driven to Excel

By John Sudsbury, Tulane Athletic Media Relations

To see Tulane’s Michael Kogan on the tennis court is like watching Michael Jordan on the basketball court or Barry Sanders on the football field. When he gets on a roll, it is magic. When he does not make the big play, you are shocked. The ball and his racket are connected, and his opponents do not have a prayer. Shots rifle down the sidelines, skim over the net and clip the white lines again and again. Serves, lobs, volleys, overhand blasts and underhand dinks, from the baseline to the net and everywhere in between, it doesn’t matter, every shot is falling.

But if he misses a shot, watch out! His competitive fire, always bubbling beneath the surface, boils over. He will yell at himself, glare at referees and plead with anyone in range.

“I just hate losing so much,” said the Tulane senior. “Sometimes I lose my head when I play on the court and I argue with the referees and stuff. Some people think that I am a jerk on the court and I behave stupidly sometimes, and I do. But all of that is just because I want to win so badly.”

Michael Kogan may not be as single-minded as Vince Lombardi and the “winning is the only thing” attitude, but when it comes to competition, he will give 100 percent regardless of the activity. On the tennis court, his drive to succeed is unparalleled. That drive has resulted in enough awards to fill a trophy room.

Each subsequent award matters less and less to Kogan. Conference USA Player of the Year? Got three others already. Player of the Week in the league? Big deal, done that 13 times now. Louisiana Player of the Year? Yeah, have some of those too. All-American? Now that has to have value! Well, yeah, that is pretty good. How about the all-time Tulane record for wins? Whoa, wait a minute! Now winning is important!

And just like the legendary Jordan, his competitive side transfers off the court as well. While Jordan is famous for his drive in golf and card games, Kogan’s friends are quick to tell of his desire to win in other games.

“We play games on the computer, and we both get so mad when we lose, we will not talk for the rest of the day,” said close friend Ivan Pjevcevic, a member of the Green Wave basketball team. “And if I win, I tell everyone and it makes him so mad, but he does the same thing to me. And when we play Risk [the board game], sometimes we will just attack each other and not the other people and we will both end up losing.”

All competitiveness aside, it is nearly impossible to measure the value that Kogan has delivered to the Green Wave tennis program.

Prior to Kogan’s arrival in New Orleans, head coach Robert Klein’s Green Wave had been very successful. The Wave had captured one Conference USA title and advanced to four straight NCAA Tournaments. The team had climbed to No. 42 in the national rankings.

But in the years “A.K.,” or after Kogan’s arrival, the Green Wave has become a tennis powerhouse. In his four years, the Wave won three C-USA titles (2001, 2003, 2004), settling for second during his sophomore season. Tulane has extended its NCAA streak to eight years, one of 13 teams in the nation with a streak of that length. Last year, the Wave hosted an NCAA Regional for the first time, winning the event and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time. Despite losing to No. 1 Stanford in the round of 16, Tulane closed the year with the No. 14 ranking in the nation.

“I don’t think there has been any one athlete who has done more to lift his program to a high level than Michael Kogan,” said Green Wave director of athletics Rick Dickson. “His skill on the court and his drive to win along with his outgoing personality have all built fan interest, national stature, and obviously wins for the program.”

Dickson made those comments upon presenting Kogan with Tulane’s 2004 Male Student-Athlete of the Year Award at the all-sports banquet on May 3^rd. The talented Green Wave senior is more than a tennis star. He carries a 3.0 grade-point average as a double major (accounting and finance) in Tulane’s prestigious Freeman School of Business and is going to graduate in May.

“He was a great student,” said Kelly Ryan, one of his business school professors. “He really brought a lot of team spirit to the class and wonderful enthusiasm. He was never out for an easy A, he worked very hard. He wants to learn, but he always added a nice touch of happiness to the class.”

“In high school, I took academics as something I had to do,” Kogan said. “But here, I realize it is very important.”

Kogan’s appreciation for the value of academics comes from his family, especially his parents, who sacrificed much in order to provide opportunities for their two sons, oldest son Alex, now 34 and working on a post-doctorate degree at Cal Tech, and Michael.

The Kogan family grew up in the Soviet Union, in the city of Tashkent, in the state of Uzbekistan, which is now an independent country. A poor city where food was scarce and opportunity was scarcer under Communist rule, Tashkent was not what Kogan’s parents wanted for their sons.

Being Jewish, they chose to emigrate to Israel when Michael was 12 years old.

“My parents wanted more opportunities for their kids, to give my brother and me a chance to be somebody in the world,” Kogan said.

The transition was not easy for the young Kogan. At 12 years old, he was forced to learn Hebrew, a new language completely different from his native Russian. A stranger in a strange, and often violent land, Kogan found solace in tennis, a sport he was introduced to at age six. In Israel, his game thrived under the tutelage of his coach, Gadi Margapit.

“He coached me for over 10 years in Israel,” Kogan said. “He got my head straight. Everybody can hit the ball, but if you don’t have it here [in your head], you don’t have it.”

While he developed as a tennis player, he also adapted to Israel, adopting the country as his home.

“Violence is always there,” Kogan said. “It is frustrating to be scared all of the time. You have to think about it all the time. If you want to go to the mall, you wonder if it will be safe. But, I love the country. It is my home. I love everything about it, the people, the food. It is a small country, but a great country.”

All Israeli males must serve three years (two for women) in the military following high school. However, elite athletes are often given postings which allow them to continue to train in their respective sports. Otherwise, the state of Israeli athletics would be pitiful; imagine the NBA or Major League Baseball if every American high school basketball or baseball star had to take three years off to serve in the army.

Kogan had the skill to allow him to continue to pursue tennis while serving in the army, though he does feel some regret for not serving his country in a more active role.

“I have a lot of friends who are soldiers and officers now,” Kogan said. “Sometimes I feel like I wanted to contribute more to the country. On the other hand, it would have been either tennis or the army. I could not give up tennis, I love it so much.”

Following his term in the military, Kogan could have attempted a professional tennis career. However, his parents urged him to use his tennis skills to get a good education in the United States.

That’s when head coach Robert Klein and the Green Wave tennis program got lucky. A friend of Kogan’s, Gil Kovalsky, had played collegiate tennis for Klein at Northern Arizona and contacted the Tulane coach about Kogan.

“Gil had called me about other players, but he wanted to send me someone with the right work-ethic and attitude,” Klein said. “He told me that this one was a good one.”’

Kogan arrived at Tulane in August of 2000 and wasted little time making his mark on Tulane tennis, winning three tournament titles and advancing deep into the Region III Championships during the fall of his freshman campaign.

“I had heard all of his accolades and I knew he was a good player,” Klein said. “But I did not expect him to have as much success as he did right away. The biggest surprise was his doubles play; his coach in Israel really prepared him for doubles.”

But Kogan still had to adjust to the major difference between American college tennis and international tennis: team scoring. In collegiate tennis during the spring dual-match season, each singles match counts for one point and the three doubles matches combine for one point, giving a total of seven points. A team must win four of the seven points to clinch the match.

“I had never played team tennis; it takes time to get used to,” Kogan said. “Sometimes at the beginning, if I was winning and the team lost, I didn’t really take it too personally. Now it has completely changed. My results do not matter, as long as the team wins. I just try to do my best for the team and try to help the team.”

The adjustment could not have taken too long; the Green Wave has posted a 73-27 (.730) record with Kogan in the lineup. Each year, the Wave has lost fewer matches. As a freshman, the team dropped nine matches, followed by eight during 2002 and six last year. Entering this year’s NCAA Tournament, Tulane holds an 18-4 mark.

“Michael is one player who you know you will get 100 percent out of every single match,” Klein said. “He is very talented, but the difference is, he loves tennis and he hates to lose. He understands that to have a successful college tennis team, you have to have a team and not just one player. He has made sacrifices.”

A prime example of Kogan sacrificing came this spring, as the Green Wave struggled to integrate four newcomers into a lineup decimated by graduation. The newcomers, also international players, had not adjusted to the concepts of team tennis. The Green Wave dropped three of its first seven matches, including its first loss at home in close to two years and its first loss to a Louisiana team since 2000.

“We had some issues at the beginning of the year, with new guys coming to the team in January,” Kogan said. “Those guys had never been in the situations where it is team, team, team. You play as an individual, but the bottom line is the team performance, not the individual performance. They did not understand at the beginning and we had hard losses and everybody would get upset. I told everybody we need to get into some kind of a rhythm, on some kind of roll. And it happened, and we just keep playing better and better! We were [ranked] 45 two months ago and now we are 18-19 in the country, playing unbelievable tennis.”

“Michael really showed his leadership at the time,” Klein said. “He did not do what was popular, he was willing to put his relationship with the other players on the line to tell them what he knew HAD to be done to be successful. It hurt us the next day and the next week, but without that happening, without Michael stepping up as a leader, we certainly would not be where we are today.”

While previous seasons may have run smoother for the team, the early-season turmoil has made this year the sweetest for Kogan.

The Green Wave entered the Conference USA Tournament as the No. 2 seed, behind TCU. The Wave breezed through the quarterfinals and semifinals by identical 4-0 scores with newcomers leading the squad into a rematch with TCU. The Wave had upended the Horned Frogs for the league title in 2003, but this year’s TCU team had been ranked as high as No. 6 in the nation. After losing the doubles point, Tulane swept four singles matches, including Kogan’s dominating 6-1, 6-2 victory over Alex Menichini, the No. 39 player in the nation.

“Two months ago, we were 45 in the country, TCU was 5 or 6 in the country,” Kogan said. “I would not imagine that we could come up that high toward the end of the season. This year, they [TCU] wanted it so bad and they were so pumped up. It was such a relief when David [Goulet] won the last point, I ran and hugged him so hard, it was great.”

As his collegiate career wraps up, Kogan has his eyes on a possible pro career, but if that does not happen, he may go into business or perhaps coaching while earning an MBA. However, there is still opportunity for victories for Kogan and the Green Wave. Tulane will play in an NCAA Regional in Massachusetts in hopes of again advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. In addition, Kogan is a likely selection to the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships. He has qualified in each of his first three years and currently is ranked No. 11 in the nation in singles and No. 12 in doubles with freshman David Goulet.

As a freshman, Kogan teamed with Mikko Viljanen to advance to the round of 16 at the NCAA Doubles Championships and earn All-America honors. In 2003, with Victor Romero as his partner, Kogan advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals, again earning All-America recognition. After beginning this season unranked, Kogan and Goulet have risen nearly to the top 10. His overall success has been surprising for Kogan, but the doubles achievements have been the most unexpected.

“In college tennis, the doubles level is so much better than the singles level,” Kogan said. “A lot of people come out of college and become very good in doubles [professionally]. I feel like I am a much better doubles player than I am a singles player.”

Despite all of his life experiences prior to coming to Tulane, Kogan was not done growing. After seeing himself as an average player in Israel, being a part of the Green Wave program helped his game mature. He now sees his self-confidence as his biggest asset on the court.

“I was decent [when I first arrived], but I was not ready for my best tennis,” Kogan continued. “Right now, going on the court, I truly believe that it does not matter who I play, I believe I can beat this person. Before I came here, when I went on the court, if I knew the person and he was better than me, I would just look for a good result, instead of thinking, ‘I AM going to win this match.’ It doesn’t matter who it is, you have to believe in yourself; and that is what has happened in my four years here.”

That self-confidence has joined his immense talent, his overall maturity, his understanding of teamwork and his relentless work-ethic to make Kogan a top-ranked tennis player. However, the biggest difference, his “competitive edge,” is his desire to win at all times.