Dan Cole

Dan Cole, sports talk personality on the FAN sports radio network, hosts the "Common Man Progrum" from the flagship station KFAN in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, from noon - 2pm (affectionately known as “nothing at noon”) Monday through Friday. Cole has several self-proclaimed nicknames including the "Common Man," or just "Common," "Radio Romeo," and the "Dream of the Everyday Housewife."

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Cole moved at an early age to the Twin Cities and now resides in the suburb of Woodbury, MN. Married to "Potato", he has two sons, "Deuce" who is currently 4 years old and "Tre" who is currently 2 years old.

Cole states that he was an exceptional athlete and could have starred in any sport. He was an exceptional pass catching tight end during his Peewee football days, but chose to concentrate on golf. Cole is a golf freak and talks about his game endlessly on his show. Cole was appointed the Official Unofficial Ambassador to Minnesota Golf by former Governor and KFAN host Jesse Ventura.

While most of the KFAN hosts have guests to fill air time, Common uses his "creative" mind to fill his show with original, often recycled, thoughts and bits on politics, religion, world affairs and occasionally sports. He created the phrase '13, 14' (ex: It's a couple 13, 14 minutes before 2). The only regular guest on Common's show is Dan Barreiro during the so-called "Super Show". Cole has had his fair share of mistakes most notably was his attempt at creating a show with his brother and sister called, "Common and the Family Cole." By all accounts, the show was unlistenable and KFAN quickly moved him, by himself thankfully, to the noon time slot to slow the bleeding and allow him to display his on-air strengths which are obvious when he has his own show.

Callers to the Common Man program are encouraged to assign themselves monikers. The monikers are generally related to the callers' personal interests, careers, or simply a witty phrase. Examples of this include, but not limited to, "Bill Bates guy" and "Monday Night Football guy".

After his contract wasn't renewed with KMSP-TV, Cole recently concluded a recurring segment on the station where he provided social and sports commentary. Cole also hosts a radio show concentrating on golf matters that airs Saturday mornings on KFAN.\Although "The Common Man" has little to no knowledge on the topic of sports, he "seems" to have some ability to predict certain incidents and results of a given sporting event. This "gift" has given way to his alter-ego known as Nostracommonus. Nostracommonus's psychic ability has been well documented throughout his illustrious career as a social commentator, highlighted by the Brad Radke home run prediction he made in the early summer of 2006. On this occasion Nostracommonus was able to precisely pinpoint the exact, inning (1st), hitter (Troy Glaus), pitch count (1-0), number of runners on base (1) and even more impressively, the time of day (6:20 Central) that the inevitable first home run would be granted lift off and launched from Skydome by way of a Radke “fastball”. This was not the first of his accurate predictions, nevertheless, it was the most notable.

However, when all his predictions are taken into account, we find that the sheer number of predictions, and the frequency in which they are made, create a statistical probability that he would get one right from time to time. It is from these in-frequent times of being correct, that he stakes his claim to the self-given and undeserving moniker of Nostracommonus.

Common occasionally does a bit entitled "The Seventh Inning Stretch" in which he mimics sports talk radio shows with his take on baseball. He has similar bits for football (In the Trenches), basketball (In the Paint), and hockey (Beyond the Pond and Between the Pipes).

Another one of Common's favorite things to talk about is "Selling Hope." This refers to owners, athletes, and sports writers making excuses for losses or reasons why the sports team will do well in order to increase ticket sales and keep the fan base interested when nothing interesting really happens with the team. Along these lines, Common claims to be the webmaster of the site Homersota.com. Homersota discusses the state of "homerism" amongst the sports journalists in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Each month Homersota chooses the most deserving candidate to be awarded the prestigious "Homer of the Month" award. Cole spends most of his free time updating the site, although due to his heavy work load at the station, Homer of the Week was recently changed to Homer of the Month.

On February 28, 2007, Common announced that because his contract had expired with KFAN and had yet to be renewed, he was leaving the station. The station's website later featured photographs of Common cleaning out his cubicle and being escorted out of the building by station officials. This turned out to be a bit however and Common was indeed back in his normal 12-2 slot the very next day.

On May 18, 2007, KFAN renewed Cole's contract. KFAN graciously offered a two-year contract, with an option for a third year.

External links

* [http://www.kfan.com/pages/common/index.html "The Common Man" Dan Cole at the official KFAN website]

Although "Common" as he is affectionately called likes to mock and ridicule not only the Minnesota sports fans, but also their local sports teams. His recycled "bits" as he refers to them sets Common apart from the other local on-air personalities.