Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Alternative

The other possibility for Bobby Kotick's nickname was Boris Becker's Cough.

I should just leave it at that, but since so many of you have no idea what that means, here's a short explanation. Becker was a West German tennis player who rocketed onto the international scene by winning Wimbledon in 1985 (at the age of eighteen).

A few years later, he played at Wimbledon despite some kind of bronchial infection. He had a nasty cough, though, and would cough deeply several times before each serve. Everyone felt badly for the guy, soldiering onward in the face of illness, etc.
Well, everyone felt badly until he kept doing it for three more years.

That's right. It became a mannerism, and it was absolutely excruciating to watch one of his matches. He couldn't serve without coughing first, and it drove everyone crazy.

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