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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Volleyball family

Barratt Kosty follows court career with motherhood

Brandy Barratt has always been all about volleyball, and so far her life has played out close to perfect.

She has been there and done that.

It all goes back to the one goal she had while playing at Gonzaga Prep.

“When I was trying to decide where I wanted to go to school, I knew I wanted to come back to Spokane for the Final Four,” she said. “I had to find a school that could do it.”

And how did that work out?

“I couldn’t have done it more perfectly,” she said.

These days it’s her marriage that keeps her connected to volleyball. Her husband, Chris Kosty, is the North Idaho coach. That helps feed her volleyball Jones without disrupting a more important role, motherhood.

Kosty became a mother four months ago, which altered her life, but hasn’t slowed her down. She still plays rec on Monday and scrimmages at NIC whenever possible.

But back to the decision.

Kosty chose perennial power Long Beach State, which made it to Spokane for the Final Four her sophomore year in 1997, losing in the semifinals to eventual champion Stanford.

In addition to the potential homecoming and the usual location and weather reasons, what accidentally helped sell her on the 49ers was what they didn’t have.

“At Long Beach volleyball is the premier sport, both men’s and women’s,” Kosty said. “They don’t have football to compete. They sell out the Pyramid, it’s an awesome place to play.

“I didn’t know that guys played volleyball. When I showed up on campus they had me sit with the guys to watch a match. That was neat. It was also poster night and the girls signed autographs. It was so cool, they were such celebrities.”

Despite making it to the Spokane Final Four, that wasn’t the highlight of her collegiate career.

Her junior season the 49ers went undefeated, winning the 1998 NCAA championship over Penn State, one of her official visits along with Ohio State.

Her last season they made the Final Four again – and lost to Stanford again.

That Stanford thing is significant.

Kosty made headlines in 1998 when the 49ers were ranked No. 1 the whole season but placed in the same regional as second-ranked Stanford.

Coach Brian Gimmillaro didn’t pull any punches about the questionable seeding and his star middle blocker echoed that at a Final Four news conference in Madison, Wis.

The gist of her comments was that after working hard to earn the top seed the 49ers didn’t necessarily get all the perks that go with it.

That it created one of those media firestorms took her by surprise.

“It’s a West Coast sport and they wanted a team in the East to win it,” she recalled. “Somebody asked me and I was just a little college kid. I was taught to tell the truth all the time.”

Stanford was upset in the third round and the 49ers went on to win their third national championship.

After getting her degree, Kosty became the typical volleyball nomad, playing on the beach (where she met Kosty), spending some time with the national team and then playing overseas. She went to Austria and had a great time kicking around Europe, partly because Kosty was playing in Switzerland.

She was asked to play in the American pro league the next year but turned it down for the money in Spain. The experience in Spain wasn’t what she expected, so she come back to play for the professional Minnesota Chill.

“That was awesome,” she said. “It’s everybody’s dream to play pro in America.”

Kosty admits to being baffled why the league folded after one year, but she opted for a couple of knee surgeries in 2003 and her high-level aspirations were over but not her connections to the elite. Two of her former 49ers teammates won medals in the recent Olympics – Misty May earned gold on the beach and Tieva Hanne won silver indoors.

About that time, Chris Kosty, who played in junior college and then at Hawaii, was cut by the national team, proposed and they were married in December 2003.

In 2005 they moved to Spokane, where they became involved with club volleyball and she went to work in the accounting department for Garco Construction. That didn’t last long because Oregon State offered her a coaching position. But the money and prestige of the Pac-10 was offset by an inability to sell their home in Spokane, and for economic reasons they moved back. Garco found out and re-hired her, Chris got the job at NIC, then along came Kenno.

Kenno is named after Jose Gondara, who was a teammate of John Kosty at Santa Barbara. Chris used to visit his older brother and really admired his teammate nicknamed Keno.

The extra “n” is for pronunciation purposes but that’s just a technicality. It’s all about volleyball.