If you are preparing for a fantasy football draft in the next few days, I wish you good fortune. If you're preparing for two fantasy football drafts, I wish that you'd reconsider your commitment. If you are preparing for more than two fantasy football drafts, I wish you'd get a life.
There simply is no earthly reason to be in multiple fantasy leagues. If you are, there's a great big beautiful world out there and you're missing it. I worked with someone a few years ago who was in SIX Fantasy Leagues at the same time. "I just couldn't say no," he told me. "With six different teams with many different players, don't you find a lot of scenarios where you're betting against yourself?" I asked. "Oh, all the time," he replied. Somehow, this made sense to him.
I tried fantasy football for a year in the early ‘90s. I knew it was eating me alive when I stayed up to watch an entire Sunday night game because I had Flipper Anderson on my squad. This happened while I anchored the Fox 6 morning show and had to get up at 2 a.m. And I spent countless restless nights deliberating certain roster moves, trades and supplemental draft picks. For me at least, it was time to put away childish things.
"I was screaming at your brother last Sunday," I once told former Bucks assistant coach Butch Carter, brother of former Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter, an ill-fated member of my fantasy squad who had the unmitigated gall to get seriously injured during my team's playoff drive.
"Get up, you @#%$%^&*!" I shouted at the TV.
"I've heard that from a few folks this week," Butch laughed.
The most absurd fantasy scenario I ever witnessed happened at the Las Vegas Hilton during an NFL Sunday.
"Did you hear what Emmitt did today?" one young bellhop breathlessly asked another. "I needed him to go over 100 yards with one TD to win my week."
Here were these two dudes standing about 200 yards from the greatest sportsbook on the planet (27 pages of Super Bowl proposition wagers last February) where they could walk down the hall into a football bettor's paradise and they were obsessing over one running back.
And while I sure you are a terrific person, great parent, wonderful co-worker and outstanding role model, remember this: no one else cares about your fantasy football team. If, in making conversation I happen to ask how your fantasy team is doing, limit your answer to 30 seconds. Because while I like you and am happy to hear that your team is near the top of the standings, I have no interest in all the details of the wonderful trade you made for Mason Crosby.
While I admire the spirit of it, I don't get fantasy football but I salute those who do. And I really do wish them well this season. I only hope they don't let too much fantasy get in the way of reality.
Paraphrasing the most trite sports cliché of them all, take it one league at a time.
Before arriving in Wisconsin, Mark was a TV sports director at stations in Greensboro, the Quad Cities and Fort Smith, Arkansas. He got his first job at the ABC affiliate in Syracuse during his junior year at Syracuse University where he majored in TV and Radio at the Newhouse School.
Mark is an avid fan of all sports. He covered the Packers at Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans and has also reported on the Final Four, the Daytona 500, the Rose Bowl, the NLCS and the PGA and U.S. Open golf championships. He covered the GMO for 20 years. Mark played soccer in high school and is a passionate supporter of "The Beautiful Game." One of his greatest experiences was attending a UEFA Champions League game hosted by Real Madrid at Bernabeu Stadium.
Mark was born in Philadelphia but has happily made the transition from cheese steaks to cheese heads and is thrilled to now call Wisconsin home. He is currently president of Concannon Communications LLC and working on projects involving, writing, producing, voice-overs and public relations.
