A lot of people try to pinpoint exactly when the world started going downhill. Some point to the invention of the television, others to the advent of Jeep owners putting little rubber duckies on their dashboard. A few conspiracy theorists note that ever since Harambe the gorilla died, things have been pretty dark.
But I think you have to follow this thread all the way back to 1963 to determine when we lost our way. It was that year when a group of Bay area businessmen formed the “Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League,” likely after a night of heavy drinking. (But since they were Raiders fans, that’s sort of a given.)
This league, a secretive enclave of administrators and season ticket holders of the then-Oakland-based team, originally ran by invite only. It wasn’t until one of the original members, a guy named Andy Mousalimas, brought it to his bar that it caught on with the public (who had also been drinking pretty heavily by that point. It was the ’60s, after all).
Then, like everything else, the internet took something fun and made it worse. It was only when people could get connected to the entirety of human knowledge through their home computers that they could more efficiently pick out a tight end who was good against a 33 stack defensive scheme.
Fantasy football as we know it today was born, a $3.6 billion industry that combines the excitement of football with the number-crunching delight of doing your taxes.
Look, I don’t want to come down too hard on fantasy football. I love football. Specifically, I love football on Saturdays and Sundays for 18 weeks out of the year. Also Mondays, when the Steelers are playing. And Thursdays if there’s nothing else on. But having to follow individual players I’ve never heard of who play for teams I don’t particularly like? And being emotionally invested in how many rushing yards they get that day? And having to do math? I’ve just never seen the appeal.
It’s almost like they combined the most boring parts of both football and Dungeons & Dragons. But I am clearly alone in this.
Something like 33 million people play every year, almost entirely when they should be working. My own wife joined a league last year, leading to me watching at least four more games a week than I’d normally watch. She ended up placing pretty low in her league, partially because she was leaning on me for pointers and I really just watch it for the violence. (Why do I need to know the guy’s name who just pancaked on an open-field tackle? I’m not his orthopedist.)
My wife’s league, run by a bunch of the wives in our neighborhood, was won by my neighbor Rebekah Runyan. Not only is she an avid Packers fan, her husband, Doug, is like the Ken Jennings of football knowledge. You can ask him who was the second-string quarterback for the 2007 Miami Dolphins and I can almost guarantee he’ll know.*
Myself, I had to google whether Miami fielded a team that year. (They did. But they went 1-15 so they really only fielded a team in the most technical sense possible.)
“This was my first year playing fantasy football and I enjoyed it way more than I ever expected to,” Rebekah said. “I definitely watched more football than normal – games I normally wouldn’t care about and teams I don’t like!”
Because she’s a Packers fan, the list of teams she doesn’t like can get kind of long.
“There were a lot of mixed emotions,” Rebekah said. “Prior to being in a fantasy league, I could never have imagined cheering for players on any team other than the Packers – especially rivals (Vikings/Bears), but I’m pretty competitive, so I got over that really quickly.”
So competitive that she won the top prize – a few hundred bucks and a “Fantasy Football Champion” shirt in Packers green and yellow.
And, not for nothing, it brought her and Doug closer together.
“My husband has been telling me for years I should play, but I just didn’t understand the appeal,” Rebekah said. “He loved that I was in a league this year because we ended up watching a lot more football together.”
And while a T-shirt is a pretty amazing prize, it’s nothing compared to what some of the big leagues offer their players. The top prize for one of the two leagues run by Bluffton resident Dick Dancer (not his real name, because I’m pretty sure he runs all this at work and doesn’t want his boss finding out) is $750 and a beautiful “Fantasy Football Champion” belt.
It sure beats what the loser wins. “You have to eat a dozen diner pancakes in one sitting,” Dancer said. “You have to sit there until they’re all gone.”
For Rev. Dancer (yes, he has a fake title for his pseudonym), who’s been running the league for the past 12 years, the football is only part of it. The aggravation is the real job.
“It’s like herding cats,” Dancer said. “You have to get all the guys together for the draft, make sure everyone agrees on rules, league fees, draft dates, trade deadlines, things like that. Most of the time no one gets along. Because they’re guys.”
But once you get past the fights, the scheduling, and the math, you get to the heart of why Dancer has run this league for more than a dozen years, even though he hasn’t won it once.
“We all do it because we all used to work together and it’s become a way to keep in touch over the years,” Dancer said. “We have an in-person draft, so we fly up to New York and all rent a restaurant every year.”
There are a million reasons why people do it. To bond with other fans of the game. To enjoy the camaraderie of forcing someone to eat pancakes. To win $750 and a belt.
Maybe I’ll give it a shot this season. Anyone know if Cleo Lemon is still playing?
