Acclaimed comedian Brian Regan to perform Feb. 14 in Kennewick

Brian Regan has his college football coach to thank for his lauded comedy career.

Or at least for pushing him in the direction of the stage.

“I was thinking I was going to be an accountant, but I wasn’t enjoying the accounting classes I was taking,” he recalled.

He shared that with his coach during a heart-to-heart, and the man had some advice.

“He said, ‘You’re a funny guy. I think you might be cut out for communications or theater arts,’ ” Regan said.

Coach was right.

Regan now is one of the most acclaimed stand-ups around, hailed by luminaries from Jerry Seinfeld to Chris Rock as a master of the craft.

Last year alone, he made his 28th appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman and starred in Comedy Central’s first ever live stand-up special.

On Feb. 14, he’ll bring his comedy chops to the Tri-Cities. He’s performing at 7 p.m. at the Toyota Center in Kennewick.

After the talk with his coach, Regan switched majors and started honing his comedy skills.

At first, he was emceeing college events, but his ambitions began to grow.

“I really started enjoying it. It got in my bones. More and more I started thinking, ‘I wonder if I could do this as a career?’ ” he said. “That’s when I first experienced passion in my life. I said, ‘I really want to do this and I’m going to try to make it happen.’ ”

Regan works clean — no rapid-fire cursing on stage for him.

He finds the funny in everyday life.

In his live Comedy Central special, he mused about everything from working as a busboy at IHOP to going to a new doctor.

And he killed it.

The New York Times called him “a refined technician, a connoisseur of amusing word combinations” who has a “rigorously honed delivery.”

Vanity Fair hailed him as “the funniest stand-up alive.”

The live comedy special aired last September. A few months before, Regan made his final appearance on Letterman’s show, shortly before the legendary host retired.

Being among the final guests was an honor, Regan said.

“To get on there once was a big thing for me. And then to have it go well enough that they wanted me a second time? And then they kept having me back on? Comedians really looked up to that show. It felt wonderful,” he said.

Regan grew up in Florida, the fourth of eight kids. He’s now based in Las Vegas, although he’s frequently on the road.

The passion sparked in college has stayed with him. He said he loves crafting a joke, loves sharing it from the stage.

“One thing I like about comedy is you can trust the reaction. You can trust the laugh. People fake many things in life, but rarely will people fake a laugh,” he told the Herald. “When you get a person laughing or a roomful of people laughing, you feel like you’re making a connection.”

Tickets for the Feb. 14 show start at $37.50. They’re available through the Toyota Center box office and Ticketmaster. Tickets purchased through the box office avoid service charges.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 9:29 AM with the headline "Acclaimed comedian Brian Regan to perform Feb. 14 in Kennewick."