All About Mike!

Mike Veneman hails from Steubenville, Ohio, home of such greats as Dean Martin, Jimmy The Greek, and Frank Lopatowicz. Being from an urban setting helped Mike gain an interesting outlook on life. "Most people have a lawn in front of their house; I had a parking meter - it was my only toy as a child. I remember, on Christmas, my father would give me five nickels and tell me to really enjoy myself."

Mike ventured to Wheeling, W.Va. to attend college. He changed his major seventeen times. "Everything looked so good. I thought that animal husbandry would really hold my attention." But that was not the case. Mike graduated from Wheeling College with a degree in public administration.

Mike was restless and needed a change of scenery (the fact that he had 267 parking tickets and a warrant issued in his name also had something to do with this). So he headed back to Ohio to be nearer his favorite city - Cleveland. "Its like a big Steubenville !!" He settled in Kent and began working on a master's degree in Sport Administration - "Why not?". Completing his master's, Mike realized that he would never be able to work in the real world; college would be his fortress of solitude - "Great hours, great pay, three months vacation, and a fresh supply of eighteen year-olds every year." He was going to be a college professor. Time for the doctorate.

But how about comedy? How did he get into that? "You have got to be kidding! My life is comedy. If you lived my life you would either kill yourself or become a comedian. And since I am an abject coward, I went on stage."