Powell alum up for tennis coaching award

Posted 5/6/21

As Josh Cossitt becomes a staple in the tennis community, he is carrying his Powell legacy with him.  

A 1999 graduate of Powell High School, Cossitt has been voted one of the Top 10 tennis …

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Powell alum up for tennis coaching award

Posted

As Josh Cossitt becomes a staple in the tennis community, he is carrying his Powell legacy with him. 

A 1999 graduate of Powell High School, Cossitt has been voted one of the Top 10 tennis coaches in the United States by Tennis.com and is in the running for “America’s Top Coach” honors. He currently serves as the lone tennis professional at Cheyenne’s Frontier Park Tennis Center

As a resident of the nation’s smallest state by population, Cossitt was shocked upon receiving the news of being selected by the players, coaches and fans across the country who voted. 

“I learned being the only coach walking around the national events with a Wyoming Cowboys hat gave me more visibility than I could have imagined,” Cossitt said. “I don’t think anyone, including myself, would have expected I would make the cut to the top 10 overall and top five for men, but after a rough year for sports, I’m just going to enjoy the moment.”

Cossitt played multiple sports in his early years in Powell but focused more on tennis, as his size and speed was more suited toward the sport. He was a member of the 1997 PHS team that finished second at the state tournament — the best finish in school history at the time. 

Now more than 20 years since his graduation, the coach sees Powell — a community with just three tennis courts during his adolescence — as a place paramount to his development within the sport.

“It made me hungry to prove I belong on the court, coaching at high-level events,” Cossitt said. “Strong work ethic was a pretty common theme for the area. We shoveled snow off courts and most of us played with hand-me-down racquets.”

While Cossitt now lives six hours away from Powell, he has kept in touch with the community. 

He was on hand when PHS won its first tennis state championship in 2019, describing it as one of the greatest accomplishments in Wyoming sports history. And Cossitt recruited Jesse Brown — the No. 1 singles player on the 2019 PHS championship squad — to play in the Border War, a tennis competition between Wyoming and its bordering state.

This summer, Cossitt will coach a World Team Tennis Junior National Team in Orlando, Florida. Three of the six athletes will hail from Wyoming. 

Whether Cossitt wins the prestigious award, he has reciprocated his tennis knowledge back to the Powell and Cheyenne communities, and Wyoming as a whole. That’s been his goal the entire time. 

“Giving back has been the best part,” Cossitt said. “Little things like getting my first job with keys to indoor courts and getting sponsored with free equipment are things I’ve never taken for granted.”

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