What got you started in FF? (1 Viewer)

[Rio Gamblers]

My brother-in-law got me started. He needed another body to fill in and make it an even number so I tried it out. Really took my lumps that year. 2 years later I was able to win it all.

What's your story? Let's hear them.

 

[gbill2004]

My brother talked me into playing in one league, and I've been hooked ever since.

 

[chedha]

I started back in '98... Nobody got me into it. I just joined a free league to see what the big deal was. It seemed ridiculous to me at first. I thought it would be a big waste of time, but it was free so i decided to give it a shot anyway. I've been hooked ever since..

 

[BlueDredSo]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

 

[Mich_Wolves]

3 years ago

I was in 8th grade

Loved the NFL so i tried this Fantasy thing... didnt know what to expect

3 years later

im in love....

 

[bentley]

In middle school, we came up with this football game on paper that was basically a 6 x 6 chart with six offensive plays down one side and six defensive plays across the top. The chart was filled with yards for the results. Once that got old, someone discovered this fantasy football thing.

I have no idea how we actually discovered it. Did Sporting News run fantasy football ads in the late 80's?

 

[The Shizzle]

In 1996, some friends and I thought since we collected football cards, it would be cool to assemble an "All Star" team of our players that we liked. One of my buddies read about Rotisserie Leagues and how you can track players stats and get a point value on it. So we looked up hot to do it and started our league by tracking the scores in Monday's paper. We had 8 People in that league. I remember having Scott Mitchell (QB DET), Ki-Jana Carter (RB CIN), Yancy Thigpen (WR PIT), Ben Coates (TE NEP) on my roster. I've been hooked ever since. And boy have things changed.

 

[AcerFC]

My first memory of playing in a fantasy league was 1989 in 6th grade. My dad had shown me an article in our local paper about it and me and my firends started a 6 man baseball league. We would have drafts every day because it was fun.

Then the next year in 7th grade we did a basketball league. Remember this was before the internet so every week (on Wednesday, I think), I would get the USA today and they would print every teams stats from the NBA. I would photocopy it in the library and then look at the previous weeks and subtract this weeks from last weeks. Then I would add up each teams totals and write out a report on records and stats, photocopy and give to each team.

I have been in a league ever since then, about 16 years of my life. I even bet a first round football pick when I was a sophomore and of course I lost.

 

[bentley]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

 

[mojorizin]

Was crocked and playing Tecmo Bowl in 1990 with my buds when someone said we should start a fantasy football league. I was like "you wanna actually make a league and keep stats on Tecmo Bowl, you h0m0? Put down my bong. Right. now."

My understanding has grown since then.

 

[LordHusker]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

Wrong. Get this crap outta here.

 

[bentley]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

Wrong. Get this crap outta here.

75% of the threads on the front page are worthless or worse. At least this one's interesting (which can't necessarily be said for you). What happened to Keys' weekly questions?

 

[hove]

Buddy I worked with in 1990 had a ffball mag on his desk. I read it, thought it looked cool, joined his league and promptly drafted Aikman in the 1st round. Thankfully it has gotten much better since then...

 

[Kleck]

1992. Guy in all my math and ed classes (he teaches math now too) asked me to start a league with him. I'll never forget Ricky Sanders scoring a TD for my team one week. I literally came off the couch jumping up and down. Right then I knew everything was different because I'm usually a fairly stoic dude.

 

[Exile]

I was introduced to FF in fits and starts:

In 1990, my Dad joined a fantasy league at his office. He thought it would be a good bonding experience if we managed the team together. It wasn't. It was one year and done for me and all I remember is that we had Christian Okoye...the year after his big season. It would be 6 years before I gave it another shot.

In 1997, my brother invited me to join a league he was doing after I moved to the city he was living in. It was an Auction Draft and I showed up with a 2 month old FF magazine and nothing else. I spent most of my cap on Jeff Blake (the year after his big year) and Marvin Harrison (the year before he became a stud). I finished 2nd to last.

In 1999, after taking a year off, things finally got going for real. I had spent some time that summer reading about FF and actually learning some strategy. Then I saw a sign for a league forming in the break room at work. I dropped an email and I was in. My first pick was Terrell Davis at 1.03 (he would play 4 lackluster games before going out for the season with a knee injury), but I still went 8-5 and made the playoffs.

We're in our 8th year now and I've been to 3 title games, winning 2, and have never missed the playoffs. I also took over as the Commisioner a few years ago.

 

[Sack-Religious]

I was playing in a fantasy basketball league at Sandbox in 1997 or 1998, and saw a fantasy football ad for the 2nd half of the season and thought what the hell?!

I didn't know much about football, so I just did an autodraft. The league was an IDP league and I can still remember a few players from my roster. QB Steve Young, RB Karim Abdul-Jabar, WR Marvin Harrison and I had Ray Lewis as one of my LB's.

I'm thankful I tried this on a lark. I'm now pretty obsessed.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

In 1988 I grabbed a bunch of pages off of the fax machine in my office. I could tell it had to do with football, since NFL players were listed. But the standings made no sense - I didn't recognize any of the team names or divisions (nor will I print them here for fear of a vacation). I gave them to the person they were addressed to & asked what they were. He explained FF to me & I was intrigued. I had soured on football several years before - since the Colts left Baltimore - & must have been looking for a reason to care about it again because I probably drove him crazy with questions & comments on his league. Anyway, I talked him into running a league at our place of employment the next year, which he did and the rest is history. The league is now in its 18th season with most of its original members. I haven't worked with any of the others for almost 11 years, so it's a good excuse to keep in touch with friends I almost surely would have lost touch with.

 

[swampthing]

COMPUSERVE HTH Fantasy Football

1990s - kept a lot of us on compuserve for years

 

[Angry Beavers]

1991 - bunch of college buddies ( we had just graduated) decided it would be a good way for us all to stay in touch - been playing ever since. I laugh when I think about the "old" days of having to get the stats out of the monday paper, meeting everyone at the bar on Monday night to finally see the early results and waiting for the fax on tuesday to see the results and standings. then you used to get a friday afternoon fax with you who got on waivers. A buddy of mine suggested in 1992 or 3 that we ought to make it a rule that you needed to have email to be a part of our league - we all laughed at him

 

[zadok]

1990 - as a big football card collector, I always had the latest Beckett magazine - they had an article about fantasty football. So I formed my own league with some local dudes and it's still going strong. As late as 1997 I was doing scores by hand out of the newspaper...

 

[Keith R]

In 1992, a friend of mine was "unifying" two leagues and needed a couple bodies to fill in the holes. I agreed, as did another rookie friend of ours. I have no doubt we were supposed to be filler so that the two league champs from 1991 would have an easy path to the title unification game. Of course, what actually happened was that us two rooks ran away with the league and met in the final, with me winning. It was an instant rush, magnified because all these people were furious every time they lost to one of us.

The next year, me and the other finalist had to actually take over commish duties, as the experienced owners bellyached and dropped out one by one as the 1993 season approached. Fortunately, we were able to fill the league with good, competitive yet courteous owners. I've now been running this "unified" league since 1993.

 

[BigRed]

The first league I was in was fantasy baseball. Did it thru Prodigy back around 92. As mildly interesting as I found baseball even then, drafting/owning a team and and logging on to the PC to see your daily game results was addicting.

First FFL was I think 96, w/some people I knew from the baseball league. (I remember a TE run in the middle of the draft and I panicked and took Kyle Brady, d'oh) A friend saw how much fun I had following who-cares games like NO vs AZ and we started up a local league. First year was a blast (esp the draft) but it's slowly but surely become more ho-hum each year as owners got more ho-hum about it all - in fact that's why I quit that local league. GDB how hard it is to find "good" owners.

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

1994 a few fellow programmers were sitting in the computer room bs-ing with the daytime operator staff.

next thing ya know we start an 8 man league right there and start drafting that nite at the bar. Going on our 16th season. 7 of the 8 original members still in the league and have since expanded to 12 teams.

 

[wilewolf]

89 my buddy says to me, "Hey we need another guy to join up and drink some beers, watch some games each week and hang out" Well that was before I got married and didnt have anything much better to do so I joined on.

Enjoyed fantasy football ever since.

 

[Woz]

The year my uncle died he told me all about it over the phone and got me all excited about it. I then got my buddies involved and it took off from there. Playing it still always reminds me of my uncle/

ETA: This was 8 years ago when I was 14.

 

[Mike Anderson]

Rotisserie Baseball suXor.

After some years of playing that in the mid 80s, Fantasy Football was Manna from Heaven. Fantasy Baseball Magazine had a "Football" edition in 1989, and the Rotisserie league started a Football league. I still remember how the Mag touted drafting a Kicker early as you could out pace your opponents. Many of us drafted Kickers in the 3rd and 4th rounds.

 

[Wingnut]

In 1996, some friends and I thought since we collected football cards, it would be cool to assemble an "All Star" team of our players that we liked.

Me and a buddy did the same thing, except it was with baseball and it was 1987. We each drafted a starting lineup of players and gave points for performance each day. Sportcenter and the newspaper were the 2 sources for our stats.That lasted until 1988, then I graduated and the next time any sort of fantasy sports came up was in 1997 when 2 guys I worked with needed to fill a spot in their FF league and they asked me if I wanted to play. I figured Id give it a shot and went to the championship game as a rookie (finished 2nd that year). Been hooked ever since.

 

[oddball]

4 years ago, my friend asked me to 'fill in' for him at his draft that started in 3 hours because he couldn't get out of work. I had never played or knew what the hell FF was, so I said "ok" and flipped on HBO which was having a fantasy football special. Peter King was one of the panelists. Little did I know I shouldn't have listened to him!

I've won the championship last 2 years. Thanks FBG's!

 

[David Yudkin]

I lost a bet. Seriously.

I had been a fantasy baseball addict for years. One guy said if his team beat mine I'd have to play in his fantasy football league. Long story short, he came in first, I came in second.

First year I pretty much donated my entry fee as I knew very little about fantasy football. The rest is history.

 

[5Rings]

In 1988 a buncha the families that tailgated at Niner games started a newspaper based league. Lasted a few years, pretty funny to look back on it.

When I couldn't play real football anymore and had to get a job, some guys at the office said they wanted to start a league. 1995, drafted Chris Warren in the first round but won because of some waiver wire pickups named Jimmy Smith and Raymont Harris.

 

[LordHusker]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

Wrong. Get this crap outta here.

75% of the threads on the front page are worthless or worse. At least this one's interesting (which can't necessarily be said for you). What happened to Keys' weekly questions?

Looks like you were right. Thread's still here.Dang mods are becoming such pushovers here.

 

[roadkill1292]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

Wrong. Get this crap outta here.

75% of the threads on the front page are worthless or worse. At least this one's interesting (which can't necessarily be said for you). What happened to Keys' weekly questions?

It's still uncanny. Are you my alias?

 

[lord_helmet]

I was in to fantasy cycling (no kidding), and looked to improve my english + enjoy football even more

Here I am now

 

[LordHusker]

My brother-in-law got me started. He needed another body to fill in and make it an even number so I tried it out. Really took my lumps that year. 2 years later I was able to win it all. What's your story? Let's hear them.

The Oprah of the Shark Pool!

 

[zadok]

1994 a few fellow programmers were sitting in the computer room bs-ing with the daytime operator staff. next thing ya know we start an 8 man league right there and start drafting that nite at the bar. Going on our 16th season. 7 of the 8 original members still in the league and have since expanded to 12 teams.

If 1994 was your 1st season and 2006 is your 16th season, that would make it 2009...Did I Rip Van Winkle the past 3 seasons??? Did the Eagles win a Super Bowl yet?!

 

[TME]

The chicks.

 

[Wu-banger]

I invented Fantasy Football..... then I helped Al Gore invent the internet and ruin the purity of the game.

 

[Broncoholic]

Fantasy Football just seemed like a natural progression from rottesserie baseball. At the time it seemed kinds silly(15 yrs ago), but it's really taken off.

 

[ScottNorwood]

This belongs in the FFA. No?

No. This is strictly Shark Pool content. The "What got you started in beer?" and "What got you started in scantily clad blondes?" threads belong in the FFA.

Wrong. Get this crap outta here.

75% of the threads on the front page are worthless or worse. At least this one's interesting (which can't necessarily be said for you). What happened to Keys' weekly questions?

Looks like you were right. Thread's still here.Dang mods are becoming such pushovers here.

seriously

 

[Rio Gamblers]

My brother-in-law got me started. He needed another body to fill in and make it an even number so I tried it out. Really took my lumps that year. 2 years later I was able to win it all. What's your story? Let's hear them.

The Oprah of the Shark Pool!

Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment, I think.