WNBA veteran Sydney Colson is extremely funny.
You can follow her on social media, listen to her podcast with fellow WNBA vet Theresa Plaisance or maybe check out a future stand-up set where Colson is on the mic. She’s had a great career in basketball, but stand-up might be even more prosperous for her as she gets more involved in the comedy scene.
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She cited some notable comedy influences from film and television, including Eddie Murphy, Queen Latifah, Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon. Some of her favorite comedy movies include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Kicking and Screaming, Superstar and funny animated movies that had a point like Antz and A Bug’s Life. She loved watching Saturday Night Live, Mad TV and Whose Line Is It Anyway? when she was growing up. Comedy runs in her veins.
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Colson spent her most recent WNBA season with the Indiana Fever, one unfortunately cut short with an ACL tear in August. The spotlight on the Fever has always been bright since the team added Caitlin Clark in 2024, and Colson turned into one of the team’s breakout stars on and off the court as people discovered her knack for comedy.
Seriously, how often do athletes go live on Instagram after having an ACL surgery? Colson knows as well as anybody how to make people laugh, and we won’t be shocked when she has a Netflix comedy special in the works one day.
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While Colson’s ACL recovery will keep her off the court during this upcoming Athletes Unlimited run, she told For the Win she still plans to be involved in the 2026 season of the offseason women’s basketball league in Nashville.
We talked with Colson about the Fever’s recent season, some more of her comedy influences, the upcoming AU season and how having a WNBA platform has helped her amplify her comedic talent.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The Fever’s season featured so many injuries and new players factored into the rotation. What was the journey like for you from when you got to Indiana to where the team finished out the season in the semifinals?
I think it was good. I mean, we had, not a rough start, but it was up and down at times. We were [trying to] figure each other out, adjust to minor injuries at one point and never really having the full team for a long enough time to see what we could do if we all kept playing together. There were definitely challenges in that department, but the resilience of the team was great. The coachability [stood out], just people playing hard.
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All the pieces were there out of the team that you would expect to win, but we could never just get it all done at the same time. For us to make it as far as we did, and with bringing new players in, it was great to see the fight and everybody that we brought in, everybody that stayed healthy throughout the season and didn’t let other people’s injuries get into their head too much. That can surely happen when you see other people playing hard, and people keep getting hurt. You’re like, ‘Okay, now, wait a minute. Let me taper it back a little bit.’ [Overall], it was good. I think people would look at that and say that was a really successful season.
I know the Fever had a special locker room bond. Having been around a good number of WNBA teams, what do you think the secret is to having a team gel like Indiana did this past season?
You come work to do your job. It doesn’t matter what you’re hit with; you’re going to work hard, you’re going to play hard, you’re going to be a good teammate. I think we had a lot of people who were professionals. We had older players, but also some young players that are workers. They got the work ethic, got the mindset. I think that boded well for us and helped us get to the point that we got by the end of the season, just by wanting to play hard for other people. Even when people went down on, you saw another level that people took it to, and that was pretty inspiring to watch from the sidelines.
Even though you’re recovering from an injury, how do you hope to get involved with AU this year off the court?
We’re still figuring out what it’ll look like, but I just wanted to contribute whatever I could to it. I’ve enjoyed my AU experience since year one. [I] definitely didn’t want to let an injury derail me from still being able to be in this environment and give what I can give, even if only vocally for now or mentally for people. [There are] still ways I’ll be able to be of service. We’ll see what that looks like.
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I know you did a stand-up set during 2025 WNBA All-Star weekend, and your podcast is centered in comedy. Who are some of the stand-up comedians that you watch to help hone the voice you wanted to find on stage?
I like a few different people. I like for people to touch on the issues that we have in society… I’m a fan of the politically incorrect jokes that are done properly and that make a point about something, not just doing it for the sake of being mean or just nasty. There needs to be something that you’re critiquing.
Over the course of the pandemic was probably when I started watching a lot more stand-up, but I used to watch a lot of Comic View, which was a show on BET when I was younger. They would’ve comedians come on a lot, and they would rotate sets. Even from a young age, I liked a lot of comedy. I don’t know that I looked to any one person.
Janelle James; I watched her stand-up during the pandemic. [Kevin Fredericks], who was a guest on [my and Theresa Plaisance’s podcast, Unsupervised]. He has funny stand-up. I like Fortune Feimster. I like Dave Chappelle because he’ll have some jokes sometimes that people are not happy with, uncomfortable with, but it’s probably along the same lines that I’ll tell some jokes. I may not agree with everything, but in general, I was a big fan of The Chappelle Show when I was growing up. Who else? I mean, there are probably a lot more.
Would you ever want to host Saturday Night Live?
I think that would be cool. I grew up watching SNL, so that would definitely be something cool to do. In the meantime, I’ll just tell myself I got to get to writing more jokes and doing more stand-up. I’m trying to force [Theresa Plaisance] to do the same thing with me, so we can both be going down this path together.
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How has the rise in WNBA popularity helped with your visibility and being able to do work in comedy?
It’s been good. I talk a lot about what the WNBA looked like when I was a rookie in 2011 and what sponsorships [came] with it. Players having their own brands; that was rare for people to even be working on their other thing outside of basketball. It’s nice that we’re in a space now where we are so visible.
Social media exists, so you can tell your own stories or show your own personality without waiting for somebody to come ask you to do it or to choose you. I just learned probably a year or so before the pandemic… I may not have a lot of years left, but I’m going to make sure that I start controlling the narrative about myself and capitalizing on the visibility that I have right now. That’s not always going to be the case. People won’t always care about what you’re doing. [I] definitely wanted to use my time in the W to garner more attention and then see where it could go from there.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Q&A: Sydney Colson talks Fever, AU, her stand-up comedy career
