One of our favorite segments on the podcast is Bad Commish Stories. Based on your feedback, we know you love these, too, even though they tales are often cringe-inducing. I’m starting to think that we’re being too tough on these subpar league managers. Here’s the story of how I started playing fantasy football, which certainly included a bad commissioner. But was it his choice?
In the early 2000’s, I was a relatively new teacher working in a small elementary school in Kentucky. I quickly bonded with one of the few other male teachers in the building, Billy. He was a few years older than me but we had much in common. Billy had some wild and unique life experiences that he would often share during our way-too-short lunch breaks. At some point, he began telling stories about a group of college buddies from Arkansas and Texas. His stories showed how close that friend group was but now they were separated by hundreds of miles. He explained that they kept in touch by playing in a fantasy football league.
I was certainly familiar with the idea of fantasy football but I had never played the game. In fact, I wasn’t even much of a football fan. I didn’t grow up with a favorite NFL team and the only game I watched each year was the Super Bowl. It’s kind of funny though, while I was far from a die-hard NFL fan, every spring I religiously watched the NFL Draft coverage. I was always infatuated with the offseason movement, in the NFL and really all sports.
The more Billy talked about his league, the more I wanted in. The drafts. The trades. The trash talk. The bad beats and lucky wins. Admittedly, I was super naïve at this point. I knew I wanted to try out this fantasy football thing, but I was stuck waiting for a spot in this one specific league to come available. Oh, silly me.
Anyway, one day in the 2003 offseason, I got the good news. The league was expanding, adding two new teams to make it a 12-team league and Billy had recommended me. Soon, I was added to the league and began absorbing all of the league-specific information I could find, and this is where the Bad Commish story really begins.
While I had no experience playing fantasy football, especially in a dynasty league, as a huge sports fan, I was familiar with how expansion drafts worked. I would get to choose players from each team after those managers protected a certain number of players, right? WRONG! I, along with the other new guy, were told that we could build our team from players on the waiver wire. While this seemed unfair, I had no fantasy football experience from which to argue this decision, so I rolled with it.
At least I would get handed an early draft pick and maybe have the chance to select one of the top rookies like Charles Rogers, Andre Johnson or Willis McGahee, right? WRONG! Us two newbies were given the last two picks in each round, which made quarterback Byron Leftwich my first ever fantasy football pick. Woof!
The thing is, I’m not sure I would call the commissioner making these horrendous decisions a bad commish. Yes, these were certainly poor decisions and there were others to come, but at this point, with nearly 50 combined years of dynasty fantasy football experience, Scott and I have become a little biased. It’s easy to do. Play in competitive and active leagues. Participate in year-round NFL and fantasy football discussion on Twitter, podcasts and pretty much everywhere else you go. It becomes a way of life and many of you have experienced that too.
Did that guy know how poorly he was running that league? Probably not. It was a league that closed down from January through July and that’s the way they liked it. Not all Bad Commish stories involve bad commishes. Sometimes they just don’t know any better because they are no die hards like us.
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Great write up guys. I have my stories too after being commish for almost 20 years. Just started another league last year with a format I always wanted to do, but could never convince enough of the other league to try new ideas.