I was a huge Kansas City Chiefs fan as a kid, and there are three big reasons why:
1. I lived in St. Louis between the time the Cardinals left for Arizona and when the Rams moved there in 1995. I had to look outside my city for some TDs.
2. Eventually, Joe Montana moved from the 49ers to the Chiefs. Swoon!
3. A boy I had a huge crush on wore a KC Chiefs jacket and so, really, I never stood a chance.
I’d watch games on the weekend on an old black-and-white television I was lucky enough to have in my room. I’d stay up late to watch the scores on TV whenever a game wasn’t televised. I’d try to talk to friends or family about the Chiefs but aside from my crush-worthy dreamboat, who I couldn’t approach due to my nerves and shyness, no one was interested. No one seemed to share my love of the game. I suspect this has less to do with my mediocre understanding of the NFL and more to do with the fact that in St. Louis, Cardinals baseball was, and still is, the majority of residents’ focus. They didn’t have time for football, and they didn’t have time for me.
Wah wah.
Let’s skip forward. The Rams moved to St. Louis at the same time I was starting high school. I was still a ways away from the confident, boisterous person I am today but I was starting to come out of my shell and develop my own likes and dislikes based less on what cute boys wore on their backs and more on my own fast-changing opinions. At some point I had to make a choice: I could stay up late to watch the Chiefs or Conan O’Brien. There was no contest, and I remain Team Coco today. My love for the game faded and I’m sad to say that as an adult who dropped her cable TV subscription years ago, I barely have time for the Super Bowl.
To me, St. Louis never really came to embrace the NFL quite like Seattle does. Now that I live in Seahawks country I am exposed to the game by proxy as coworkers and neighbors share in the Hawks’ wins and losses. I still haven’t gotten back my intense love of the game, but I think that may change. I have discovered fantasy football.
Fantasy football combines the love of the game, obsession with statistics, and dreams of your own perfect team together into one solitary, wonderful hobby. Or lifestyle. Hey, I’m not judging. I seriously don’t know what to call it!
There are several free and easy ways to get started building your own team, one of which is directly on the NFL website. I’m working on putting my own dream team together for this season and trying to recruit like-minded friends to join forces to form our own league next season. In a league everyone drafts their team from one group of players, meaning one football player can only be on one fantasy team. Drafting can get dicey, so I’m preparing a list of tiebreakers and other hopefully fair ways to settle our inevitable disputes.
I’m glad I have a year to get my brain wrapped around fantasy football, because there is a lot to learn. The library has a fantastic resource you can check out called Winning Fantasy Football: How to Play and Win Your Fantasy Football League Every Year by Stephen Nover. This book is packed with everything I don’t know about the game, and weighs in at almost 300 pages. I’m also going to rely on The Everything Kids’ Football Book by Greg Jacobs. There’s a nice, tidy, 10 page chapter on fantasy football that does a really great job of explaining the basics. But I’m already familiar with many of the concepts because I am obsessed with a little TV show called The League
The League takes place in Chicago and centers around an eight man fantasy football league. Each season of the show covers a single football season and follows the completely juvenile antics of league players, their jobs, their families, and their lives in general. The League is a completely raunchy and immature show, which is why it has become one of my favorite shows of all-time. It’s semi-scripted, which means that the writers come up with the basic plot points and leave the actors, who are all amazing comics in their own right, to spitball and improvise the dialogue. Comedians Nick Kroll (Ruxin), Mark Duplass (Pete), Paul Scheer (Andre), Jon Lajoie (Taco), Stephen Rannazzisi (Kevin), Katie Aselton (Jenny), and Jason Mantzoukas (Rafi-my favorite!) bring their own individual voices and styles to the characters they portray—and I can’t get enough of it.
I spoke to the DVD selector here at the library, who told me the library will be acquiring this immensely funny and completely dysfunctional TV show for the collection later this year. While I don’t have a link to the catalog for you, I suggest you keep checking the waiver wire and you’ll be able to pick it up when it becomes a free agent. Or whatever we fantasy football players say.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go draft my team. I think I’ll follow the lead of Rafi from The League and try to pick up The Hulk via Bruce Banner. As Rafi once sagely stated, “Hey, it’s fantasy football. So the Hulk should be able to be on the team.”
Be sure to visit A Reading Life for more reviews and news of all things happening at the Everett Public Library.
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