With her college graduation on the horizon, Barstool’s Maddie “Moobie” Schrader received a frightening text from Barstool Sports founder and owner, Dave Portnoy.
“Hey Moobs, can you chat?”
Although she spent the previous summer as a social intern for Barstool and was brought on as a full-time content creator in September of 2023, she immediately feared the worst.
“Holy shit, I’m fired!” Schrader thought to herself.
Her housemates, including Kelly Trotta, her teammate on the Marist women’s lacrosse team, evacuated to the front porch of the now-famed West Cedar Street house while Schrader answered a call from Portnoy.
Schrader’s nerves immediately turned to excitement when Portnoy attempted to gauge her interest in hiring her “right-hand man”, Kelly Trotta. Throughout the school year, Trotta became a regular on Schrader’s TikTok account, which has over 892,000 followers.
“I was subconsciously making her a character in my videos,” said Schrader. “It made sense because in this industry it’s common to have a partner or someone to do things with you so when Dave approached me with that opportunity, I was like ‘Oh wait, that makes so much sense’.”
Relieved, Schrader approached her friends on the porch to explain the call’s premise, announcing, “Kelly… it was actually about you.”
Upon hearing the proposal, Trotta’s thoughts started to race. A fifth-year senior on the verge of graduating and beginning her career as a teacher, she was now presented with the rare opportunity to pursue a career path she never imagined: creating content with her best friend.
Immediately, Trotta began to consult everyone in her family about the potential for a drastic career detour.
“Everyone in my family kind of had the same mindset along the lines of ‘this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, teaching’s not going anywhere,” Trotta added.
“You can go back and be a teacher at any point in time… it will always be there”
Kelly Trotta
While she may have the safety net of becoming a teacher to fall back on, Trotta understood the risks of becoming a social media personality.
“Some of the podcasts, you end up talking about some things that are a little explicit and I’m like ‘I hope no one looks that up when I’m applying for jobs as a teacher,’” laughed Trotta.
Trotta ultimately accepted her offer, remaining a teammate with Schrader. The two spent the previous four years together as members of Marist’s women’s lacrosse team and now were set to continue their friendship into the workplace.
”Having her around with me, [Portnoy] knew that would make me feel more comfortable.”
While Trotta had consistently appeared on Schrader’s TikTok, she was unsure what a career in content creation entailed and never thought it would be a possibility for her.
Not long after Trotta was hired, the two former teammates had their first opportunity to make a name for themselves as Barstool’s newest duo.
Portnoy casually gauged Schrader and Trotta’s interest in participating in Barstool’s “Bussin’ With The Boys 2024 Beer Games”, while on an episode of his podcast, BFFs: Josh Richards & Bri Chickenfry. The event, taking place later on in the summer, pitted Barstool employees against each other in a series of drinking games.
“I don’t know if I could make it happen… but you guys at the Beer Olympics would be funny,” Portnoy said on the May 24th episode.
Schrader and Trotta showed immediate interest, “I’m gonna see if I can pull some strings to get [you] a late entry,” Portnoy replied.
One month later, Schrader and Trotta flew to Nashville, Tennessee. The competition was held at former Tennessee Titans offensive tackle Taylor Lewan’s house. Hosted by Lewan and his co-host on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast, fellow former NFL player Will Compton, the event welcomed plenty of big-name personalities.
Barstool participants included Dan “Big Cat” Katz of Pardon My Take and PFT Commenter, as well as celebrities such as comedian Bert Kreischer, rapper Wacka Flocka Flame, actor Jimmy Tatro, and a slew of other current and retired professional football players.
“It was the most testosterone I’ve ever been around in my whole life,” said Schrader.
Though they did not win the 16-team competition, Schrader and Trotta undoubtedly left a memorable impression. After being seeded 15th, the underdogs won their first game, defeating NFL offensive linemen Jordan Roos and Corey Levin in flip cup, a drinking game in which each player had to chug three beers, then flip the cups upside down on the table.
“It’s such the Barstool M.O. to be like ‘let’s throw these girls in and see how they do’, it’s very sink or swim,” said Schrader.
Before the day ended, Schrader and Trotta also took down the eventual champions, Compton and Lewan, in a game of beer pong. They seemingly passed their first test together at Barstool, helping establish their reputation and gain respect within the company.
“It was one of the best things I think we could have done because it felt like we were thrown into the trenches. Walking out of that, we were like ‘We fucking did that’,” said Trotta.
This past fall, Schrader and Trotta got their first chance to star in their own sponsored series, the “Feelin’ the Cheeziest” tour. There, they searched for their favorite college football student sections while recording their experience at each school and rating different elements of each campus.
Barstool pitched Schrader to Cheez-It during the summer as “Moobie’s first college football experience” as the tours visited prestigious college football programs, a far different scene than Marist’s.
“I always wanted to experience big college football games. Kelly and I obviously went to Marist, so we didn’t really get that,” said Schrader.
The tour, spanning two months, featured six stops: Michigan, Auburn, Texas, Virginia Tech, Penn State then wrapping up at Notre Dame. Though the series aimed to capture the college experience at these schools, there were guidelines that they had to follow.
Due to the series’ target market being children, Schrader and Trotta had to ensure no alcohol was present in the videos, a tough task considering most content was filmed at tailgates before each game. The videos went swimmingly with no mistakes, with Penn State eventually being crowned as their 2024 Student Section of the Year.
When the cameras turned off, Schrader and Trotta got a chance to relive their college days and hang out with students at on-campus bars or parties. Only a few months removed from their time at Marist, the schools they visited presented a much different scene due to their near celebrity statuses compared to other college students.
“It felt insane. Going from taking a three-dollar taxi to now, all the sudden we’re going to these schools and we have security guards driving us around in an Escalade,” said Schrader
Between their second and third stops on the tour, Schrader and Trotta were set to have a calm week off. Another surprise text came from Portnoy popped up on Schrader’s phone, asking if she would take part in the upcoming season of “Surviving Barstool”, the company’s series based on CBS’s long-running reality TV show, “Survivor”.
Filmed for a week in Barstool’s Chicago office, Schrader flew in from Auburn to compete. With Barstool’s biggest names also competing, the stakes were high; The winner takes home $250,000. After filming concluded, she shifted gears back to the college tour, where she and Trotta still had four more stops to visit.
“It was the craziest week of my life,” said Schrader.
Although the show was filmed in late September, it did not premiere until Dec. 3. Little by little, all 15 episodes have been posted, garnering over 500,000 viewers on each episode. For Schrader, it has been a fun experience to see how she is portrayed on the show.
The competition started with 24 participants vying for the grand prize, and Schrader survived the first 14 episodes, outlasting 20 other contestants to be among the last four in the game. In the finale episode posted on Thursday, Schrader lost a do-or-die challenge, getting eliminated just one spot shy of the final three.
“Going into it, I had no preparation. I’d never even seen ‘Survivor’. I had no clue what an idol was,” said Schrader. “I was there to have fun, and I think you could see it in the way it’s portrayed in the film because it’ll cut to me and I’m like ‘I have no clue what the fuck is happening.’”
As Schrader and Trotta continue to climb the ranks at Barstool, they have not forgotten their roots and what originally brought them together: Marist Lacrosse.
Schrader spent four as a Red Fox while Trotta played five; in 2024, Trotta tied for the team lead in goals with 39 and Schrader netted a game-winning goal against Quinnipiac.
Trotta was part of Marist’s 1-2 scoring punch alongside Kerri Gutenberger; the duo led the team in goals scored each of the past three seasons. Schrader came off the bench, starting five games throughout her four-year career, totaling 23 goals.
While filming a promotional video for the Cheez-It tour in Poughkeepsie, a few members of the team complimented their HEYDUDE shoes. Trotta made note of the comments as a potential way to give back to their former team, as HEYDUDE is a sponsor of Barstool.
They pitched the idea, and HEYDUDE was on board. After settling the logistics that went into a giveaway for the team, Schrader and Trotta headed back to Poughkeepsie.
“I was a little nervous to go back because I didn’t want to come home and miss it like crazy and miss college since we were so on the go,” said Trotta. “We didn’t really process any of that; we kind of just moved on.”
At a team gathering in December, Schrader and Trotta made a surprise visit, bearing gifts: a pair of holiday-style HEYDUDEs for each member of the team. While it was nice to be back on campus and see old teammates, they knew their work there was done.
“In the best way, we’d outgrown Marist,” said Trotta. “We took everything we could from Marist, we gave them everything we had… it felt like a closing.”
“We really closed that chapter, and it was the best closing ever,” added Schrader.
”Being who you are and being true to who you are is courageous in itself.”
Maddie Schrader
In 2025, Schrader and Trotta are focused on growing their podcast, “Inside The Slot”. Originally, the podcast served as a place for Schrader and Trotta to recap moments from each stop on the Cheez-It tour that did not make the cut in videos.
“We love that ‘slot’ phrase, living in that happy vibe,” said Schrader. “Kelly and I own our stories, we own who we are, we are authentic–maybe so authentic it’s a little concerning.”
Schrader and Trotta plan to have another host join them full-time, while also welcoming guest stars to interview. Additionally, they hope to produce more video content on the “MoobTube” YouTube channel, which is also home to their podcast.
In a little over half a year together at Barstool, Schrader and Trotta have said yes to whatever opportunity that has been presented to them, and they have reaped the benefits.
“We’re not afraid of failure,” said Schrader.
With nothing to fear, the duo of Schrader and Trotta instead remain focused on everything they have to gain.
Edited by Dan Aulbach
Graphic from Quinn DiFiore
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