Collegiate Times

Illusionist Mike Super performs a card trick at Burruss Hall.

Voodoo, mind reading, levitation and teleportation are all in a day's work for illusionist Mike Super. Since he first started dabbling in magic at the age of six, he has earned a number of awards including winning NBC's show, "Phenomenon," in 2007.

Yet his best tricks may be those preformed off stage.

"My favorite wasn't even in the public eye," Super said. "We were touring and we were driving and the police pulled me over for speeding."

Having already accumulated a number of speeding tickets in various states, he resorted to magic.

"I was like, 'Hey, if I can read your mind, would you consider giving me a warning?'" recounts Super with a smirk.

"I said, 'Well, just pick a number like one through one hundred and I told him the number. He's like, 'Hold on a minute,' and another car comes, and next thing you know, I'm standing on the side of the road doing slide hand magic for police and they totally let me go. They were totally like putting handcuffs on me and I'd turn around and get out of them."

When he is not evading speeding tickets, Super spends his time touring. He visited Virginia Tech last night, where he preformed in Burruss Hall.

The Collegiate Times sat down with Super before the show yesterday.

COLLEGIATE TIMES: You began magic at the age of six. How did you get started?

MIKE SUPER: I did. Went to Walt Disney World, actually this sounds really cheesy, but I went to Walt Disney World to this little magic shop that used to be on Main Street, U.S.A., it's not there anymore, but I saw this old guy doing little magic tricks that children torture their parents with, and I was one of those kids. I didn't want to ride anything, so my mother had to make a deal, I just wanted to watch the magic tricks, so she said, we've spent too much money just being in here, so if you ride, at the end you can buy something and that's how I got started.

CT: How did you progress from being in school and being a kid to actually being an illusionist?

MS: Oh my God, I well I've always done magic and I started doing little kids birthday parties so I was like nine years old and would be doing like, I was the older magician at seven-year-old 's birthday parties and they would like pay me to do that, and so I did that for a little while and then in high school, I would do restaurants. ... I would go around and do table magic. I'd just walk around and kind of repeat what I did at the other tables and people would come back and see me ... and then in college I started touring the college circuit and doing really well there, by the time I was getting interviewed for a position, I was making more money doing magic than what they were going to start me off you know, in a position doing (Computer Science) and I couldn't take the pay cut. So I just kept building the show and building the show and I'm just very lucky, I've been really, really blessed, so that's sort of like the progression and then I started doing arts shows and theaters, I was working on a couple TV shows when NBC called ... and I did (the TV show) "Phenomenon." ... We are working on other TV projects, but they won't air until, like 2010.

CT: When you got involved with the TV show "Phenomenon," did you go into it thinking, "Oh, I'm going to win?"

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