Fantasy

Today I awaken (thanking the creator), a day after starting my fourth decade into the madness that is fantasy football. In a day that I totally dedicate this virtual interactive game to, I am one of the 42 million (roughly one out of ten Americans and Canadians – who I still consider our friends) people who participate for both fun and profit.

I isolate myself from everyone on draft day. I don’t watch TV. I don’t go outside. Fortunately, my better half does feed me. She just throws the food in and quickly closes the door.

It is one of the things that I am truly passionate about. While I stream movies at home, I don’t do movies, concerts or go anywhere on a regular basis. And before you ask, yes, I do have friends that do not participate at all with this “thing of mines” and could care less. Why the passion? On the one hand it’s obvious. I like football. I like competing. I enjoy socializing, despite what I just said.

It started innocently enough at work. I joined a group of co-workers. In my first ever draft that I did with my co-owner (KG – shout out to him), We took quarterbacks with our first two picks. Regular players understand the foolishness of that. Yet, despite that inauspicious start, we actually finished the season 6-10.

From there, a couple of things in me developed. My competitive gene developed. Combined with my “Trekian” desire to continually attempt to improve helped as well. From there, we won three championships over the next five years.

To take the phrase from one of my favorite comics, “I’m not looking for any applause, I’m just trying to tell you a story.”

Thirty years later, I’m still doing it. I am the Commissioner of the league that I originally joined as well as running two other leagues. In fact, all of my leagues have both men and women. Aside from the reasons that I mentioned earlier, I am still not sure why I’m still caught up in it like a one-night love affair.

I guess part of it goes back to my love of sports in general that I cited in my first blog post more than 16 years ago: It beats the heck out of heroin.