Football

the 10th team in a 10 team league since I was the only one there that had the money ($100) to pony up at the time. I had driven from Austin to Dallas that weekend to see my college roommate and he invited me to the draft party just so we could hang together. The only other team owner was his brother that lived in San Antonio.

Yes, I'd watched the Cowboys and the Oilers some during the prior season, but I wasn't that huge of a football fan and certainly knew very little compared to the other nine team owners.

Everybody laughed when I picked Warren Moon as my QB--he was getting pretty old by that time. I monitored the league each week and we had to call in our line-ups each week because the Internet was a fairly new thing and most people did not have personal computers at home then. I made very few substitutions or changes to my team throughout the remainder of the season because I was a cheapskate and didn't want to pay the extra fees. The only times that I did make changes to the team were when my players had season ending injuries.

At the end of the regular season, I was 8-5 and the 6th out of 6 teams to qualify for the playoffs. The first week of the playoffs I squeaked by my former roommate, Jeff, by less than a touchdown. The following week was another squeaker when I knocked off the manager the league, Danny, by only 4 points. That win put me into the Fantasy Bowl where I faced the manager's brother, Jerry. Of course everyone talked a lot of bull throughout the season and I continued getting ribbed about the relative weakness of my team compared to the rest of the league. Everyone, including myself, was surprised that I made it to the finale.

On game day, the early Sunday games were over and it was a low scoring week so Jerry and I were running neck-and-neck going into the late games on Sunday afternoon (neither of us had players in the Monday night game). Lo and behold, Marvin Harrison of the Indianapolis Colts caught two touchdowns in the first quarter of their game and then a third touchdown in the second half, so I pulled out a victory by about 15 points that weekend. It was probably the best string of luck I ever had in my life and I won $800 in the fantasy league that year.

I went to Dallas the Friday night after Christmas to pick up my winnings and also to visit my roommate, Jeff. The good guy, budding socialist in me was so grateful that I gave $100 to Jeff to cover his original wager and because he became a father for the first time a few weeks earlier. I knew he was strapped for cash and I was doing reasonably well since I had a higher paying job than he did.

I also went across town to see another college friend, Chris. Once again, my good fortune ended up benefiting someone else because his girlfriend was arrested on Saturday morning and thrown into jail for having some drug paraphernalia. I ended up bailing his girlfriend out of jail that weekend because he didn't have any access to cash. Chris repaid me a couple of weeks later off of his next paycheck and we still remain friends to this day.

My kindheartedness did lead to some good karma afterwards in other aspects in my life as I received some pay raises at work and had some good stories to share with my colleagues, especially the former Budweiser poster girl who was a bigger football fan than I was.

I played fantasy football a few more seasons after that and had some great teams that went 9-4 or 10-3, but in the case of the 10-3 season three players from my roster were injured at the end of the regular season and I lost the following week of the playoffs. After that year, I finally left the league since I was spending an inordinate amount of time reviewing the data, following the injury reports and acknowledging that the time studying stats wasn't nearly as important as plain old-fashioned luck.

Good luck this season OriginalGeek and I hope that you have fun with your friends in your league. I tend to agree that the WR positions are usually fickle and that the QB and RBs are the workhorses on your team. Just remember that a significant component during the season is luck and if you are fortunate enough to win, then pay it forward and do something nice for someone else.