While an undergraduate at Columbia University, Steve Hofstetter became a popular sports columnist for The Columbia Daily Spectator. It was there that the public support for his wry humor began, and with major magazines taking notice of the impact Hofstetter's column was making with the college crowd, it wasn't long before Maxim, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated for Kids were regularly calling upon the young writer. Moonlighting as a standup comic, Hofstetter's hometown newspaper, The Queens Tribune, dubbed him "the thinking man's comic" in 2003.