I have always considered myself a big fan of (American) football. Growing up in Dallas in the 1970's the Dallas Cowboys were my childhood idols. I remember wearing a shirt with Charlie Waters on the front to elementary school. It was a weird time warp last Christmas when my wife and I ran into Charlie at the mall and Fran asked if she could give him a hug--okay, that bothered me a little bit, actually. Fran has this bizarre knack of running into celebrities...another blog for another day.
I even had a very funny experience when I was a teenager and traveled to Washington, DC. I was riding on the Metro and must have had a shirt on with a Cowboys emblem or something like that--a well-dressed woman carrying a briefcase looked at me, pointed her thumb downward, and with a look of disgust, "boo'd" me! A thirteen-year-old, obviously from out-of-town! Crazy, huh? The adults who were guiding me around had to point out to me that it was because of my shirt, and it took a moment for it to sink in that everyone on earth wasn't a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Seriously, it's possible that I had never met someone who wasn't by that point in my life!
So...when we get older, we get wiser, right? Nope. I was in an airport last year and knew the Cowboy game was coming on, and stopped to watch it. Yes, assuming that everyone in Massachusetts would love to watch the Dallas Cowboys play the Philadelphia Eagles (in short, no). I had to chuckle and remember my Metro ride 20 years earlier and thinking that my antique, Geocentric-ish (hey, I somewhat worked in a Copernicus reference!) view was somewhat comical.
There's this game that some guys play, called "Fantasy Football". You choose players that you think will perform the best throughout the season and, every week, you compare stats with other guys. It was kind of a fun way to talk about football every week, and no one got too serious about it.
I started this with a group of about 4 guys, about 10 years ago-lasting about 3 years, and we did it just for fun. The rules were loosely organized and he had a great time. At the end of the "season", a winner was declared (not me) and we went on with our life.
About five years ago, I joined this new group of guys that had known each other for years and years. They invited me to join their Fantasy Football League--they all put in $20 or so.
I knew I was in trouble when they scheduled a draft day--lasting 5 hours! I sat in a room with 12 other guys, including one guy on-line from Santiago, Chile and thought, from the moment that I arrived "What the hell am I doing here? What a colossal waste of time! These dudes need a life!"
Turns out, I had joined this hard-core group of guys who lived for football! They had purchased analysis packages of the entire NFL league and had charted out drafting scenarios with fallback positions, etc. I had my list on the back of a Dunkin' Donuts napkin...
Since I had committed to doing it, I stuck with the group and drafted, etc. It would be too embarrassing to just walk out when I realized that I wanted nothing to do with this nonsense. I had just gotten a new job that was requiring tons of time and there was no way I could keep up. Additionally, the "League Manager" instituted an internet program for us to change our teams around each week (like if a player got injured you could substitute another one, or if a team had the week off, you could "play" another player). I guess, after my 2nd week, I forgot my password and couldn't get back in to change my lineup. By that point, I had lost all interest.
It was funny, though. Almost unpredictably, my "team" would be good some weeks and bad other weeks. Some of the guys would really get into it--taunting each other, talking trash, making trades with each other, etc.
About week 8, one of the guys who seriously doesn't have enough to do in life did a spreadsheet analysis of my team performance and figured out that I never changed my team around (the funny part was, I had beat him that week). The nutless bastard reported me to the League Manager! (By the way, this is the guy who, the following year, I nearly let drown in the Kenai river as related in my blog entry Alaska!).
I was then kicked out of the league for not taking it seriously enough! Yeah, what a great group of guys, huh? (really, they're okay--just a little silly about this thing).
As it turns out, I really just like the Dallas Cowboys, and don't care too much about studying the statistics, etc. of the whole National Football League and all of it's players. I just want something to do while I eat nachos on the couch and drink coke...
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