Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Meet the Trolls

KERRY J. BYRNE – Our Potentate of Pigskin created the revolutionary Cold, Hard Football Facts concept and is the nation's foremost authority on the "gridiron lifestyle" of beer, food & football. He's also food and drinks writer for The Boston Herald and has spent much of his "career" traveling around the beer-making capitals of the U.S. and Europe while writing for Esquire, Yankee Magazine, Penthouse (yes, that Penthouse), Cargo, America Online, Epicurious.com, Boston Magazine, All About Beer and many other newspapers and magazines, most of them highly disreputable.

Kerry took first-place honors in the Pro Football Writers of America 2007 writing awards and was twice named North American "Beer Writer of the Year" at the Great American Beer Festival (2000 and 2001). He's also a two-time winner of the Quincy Hi Sckool Spelin' B (1986 and 1987).

When he's not ruthlessly crushing misguided gridiron opinions, he marches around the ColdHardFootballFacts.com cardboard-box world headquarters singing the Notre Dame fight song, creates exciting new tailgate recipes and cleans his Ruger 30.06. His hobbies include crying at the end of "Rudy," playing himself in Strat-O-Matic football and driving around Harvard Square blasting Toby Keith CDs from the speakers of the PIGSKIN Ford pick-up.

JONATHAN COMEY – This small-town scribe squandered his shot at the NFL by watching the game endlessly from his couch, wasting his intriguing mix of size and speed in the process. Canton's loss is journalism's gain. Jonathan made another stellar career choice when he dropped out of college to start a band. He then worked his way up the newspaper ladder in his spare time, rising from backup high school volleyball writer to sports editor for the Standard-Times of New Bedford (Mass.). After completing that challenge, he made another smart career move when he left the paper to take a shot at freelance writing. The road beckoned, as did the lure of the legalized gambling circuit. The result is his book, "The Poker Trip," available on his aptly named website www.jonathancomey.com. Jonathan pledges to amuse and inform you, with the Cold, Hard Football Facts as his only weapon.

FRANKIE C. – CHFF bon vivant Frankie C. is a former U.S. Marine Corps air-traffic controller turned cubicle-bound corporate worker ant who escapes his mundane existence through the thrill of competitive karaoke and deep thought about the most pressing issues of our times. His greatest accomplishments include an honorable mention in the 1981 Quincy (Mass.) Public Schools art show and a victory in the 2002 Red Parrot pub karaoke championship. Frankie wants everyone to like him not for his achievements but for his marginal looks and borderline song and dance skills. His "Frankie Five" feature was recently named as one of the ten million most influential internet series of the past quarter-decade.

MARK SANDRITTER – Our boy-wonder intern became a folk hero among truth-loving football fans earlier this year when the Washington State undergrad walked into the Pigskin Playground and beat down the Broadsheet Bully in a first-round knockout. He reminded us so much of CHFF hero Dalton, the bare-knuckled brawler/philosopher of “Road House” fame, that we just had to give him a gig. The magnificent plumage of Mark's circa 1974 mullet was just a bonus. Mark grew up in Washington and has developed a vast knowledge of useless sports facts and information. In 2006 he created www.smtsports.com where he writes articles on a wide variety of sports topics. The journalism student graduates from Wazzu in December 2007, after which he hopes to get work at a real sports publication, not just a crappy one like CHFF. Mark enjoys sports, recliners and long, slow, deep, soft sub sandwiches that last for three days.

TONY COCCO – A.k.a. Hardright, he's one of the oldest and fattest of the Trolls on the Cold, Hard Football Facts staff. He lived in South Florida in the 1990s, where he survived Hurricane Andrew, but only because he fled his Coral Gables home like a coward and headed for the nearest shelter he could find—a cardboard box under the local Metro Rail station. He liked the cardboard-box experience so much that a gig with the Cold, Hard Football Facts was a natural career regression. Tony has a journalism degree from the State University of New York and has written for several publications, covering both sports and politics. Like most Trolls, he remains unmarried and unappealing to women, but someday he hopes to have enough money to purchase a lovely young Russian bride and bring her to live with him in his cardboard-box kingdom.

WILL KANTROWITZ – This precocious blogster and newcomer to Cold, Hard Football Facts is so young that he gets carded for shaving cream. This Villanova freshman has been running his own sports card business since 2000, when he was just two years old. Nicknamed "Ace" because he's one of the 100 worst poker players this side of a convent, he flashes his temper on the golf course. He's broken a full set of clubs over the years, only once over the head of a geriatric patron who was "looking at me funny." In addition to tracking down bad-ass CHFF links for the ADD crowd, he pines painfully for the company of beautiful women.

FRIENDS AND CONTRIBUTORS

JOHN DUDLEY – John enjoys thoughtful analysis, passionate expression and long post patterns on the beach. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he previously worked as a writer/producer and co-host for various sports-radio programs. When not contributing content to Cold, Hard Football Facts, he tries to make a legitimate living as a freelance writer and editor. John is also available for parties, especially those with an open bar.

COACH T.J. TROUP – Coach Troup is one of the nation’s leading professional football researchers and has long stood as a voice of rational analysis in a sports world dominated by misguided hype and opinion. A resident of Tustin, California, he has worked with Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal and NFL Films, most recently as a member of the “America’s Game” committee that helped NFL Films rank all 40 Super Bowl champions. He's also worked as a technical advisor on the upcoming George Clooney film, "Leatherheads." Coach’s reporting has been published by the Professional Football Researchers Association, American Football Monthly and Remember the AFL. Coach played defensive back at Millikin University and coached high school and college football for 20 years, including five years at national high school power Mater Dei of California. Today, he teaches physical education to disabled children in south Los Angeles. He has the game-by-game interception history of all 32 NFL teams, as well as defunct teams of the past, which is available for purchase by contacting the Cold, Hard Football Facts.

ALLEN BARRA – Allen is a former French Foreign Legionnaire and fashion consultant for Women's Wear Daily who has only a loose grip on reality. Here on Planet Pigskin, Allen is one of the nation’s top football writers. He has been a sports columnist for the Village Voice, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal and is the author of “Football by the Numbers,” “Big Play – Barra on Football” and “The Last Coach – A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant,” recently published in paperback. He has written many other books under the pen names Norman Mailer and Mary Higgins Clark. He is a close personal friend and advisor to Angelina Jolie but refuses to answer questions about their relationship. An Alabama native, Allen now resides in New Jersey.

LEW BRYSON – Lew Bryson has been writing about beer and whiskey professionally for 10 years, after 15 ambitious years of amateur status. He’s a columnist for Malt Advocate, a frequent commentator on National Public Radio’s “The Chef’s Table with Jim Coleman,” a contributor to BeverAge and has authored numerous books on beer, including “Pennsylvania Breweries,” “New York Breweries,” and “Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Breweries.” His travels are chronicled on his Web site, www.lewbryson.com.

MIKE CARLSON – Mike was born in the States where he attended Wesleyan College and was a lacrosse teammate of Bill Belichick. Today, he lords over football in the U.K. like inbred gridiron royalty. On the theory that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, Mike presents the NFL coverage on Britain's Five network and has broadcast the NFL and NFL Europa for Screensport and Sky Sports. He also covered NFL Europa for NFL.com and Pro Football Weekly and writes regularly for nfluk.com and First Down. He has written books about Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone, and for newspapers and magazines like The Guardian, The Spectator, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. He lives outside London with his wife, the author Kirsten Ellis, and their two-year-old son, Nate. He is slowly working his way toward that coveted membership in the 225 Club.