My husband, the faithful and ever faithful reader of ESPN, the one who knows all sports statistics on every sport for the past 15 years, the same one who pulled his groin in last year's all important Rogers vs. Mallott family Thanksgiving football game because he was trying oh-so-hard, has deemed now as the time for the rest of his non-espn loving family to begin to LOVE THE GAME.
Football is in his veins. He wears his Cowboys gear every game day. My sweet, wonderful husband, the football lover, wants to pass along his passion to his sports-challenged family. Truth be told, I believe Chuck's beloved gene has been kept alive through Bennett, the sole heir. His skill set is still sharpening, but his passion and love for the game already rival that of his father's.
Chuck asked me one night what I thought of this idea. I tried not to laugh. But really, what do I know about football, how in the world would I know who to choose. He was ready and waiting with answers for each of my questions. This is a sampling of our conversation:
Me: "First of all, I don't even know what a fantasy football league is"
Him: "Don't worry, I can explain it all to you."
Me: "Why would I want to do this?"
Him: "Cuz it would be fun."
Me: "I wouldn't even know who to pick"
Him: "Don't worry, I can tell you who is good."
Me: "And then you will pick all the good players."
Him: "No. Here look, we can even go over all their stats on espn.com"
Me: "That's okay. I trust you. I'd rather not spend a whole evening reviewing the stats of people whom I have no connection to - that would be weird."
Him: "So...what do you think? Sounds like a fun idea, huh?"
Me: "Mmmmhmmmm."
Admittedly, I did not go into this whole venture with the most excited of spirits. But Chuck's enthusiasm was contagious. First, he showed us all how we could pick our own team name and decorate our own helmet or logo. Okay...I can totally get into that. We all had fun coming up with names. Let me introduce our newly incorporated MFFFL teams:
Chuck - The Me Monsters
Me - The House Hunters
Gavin - The Flaming Fireballs
Bennett - The Stars
Chloe - The Dolphins
Other - The Dumb Old DonkeysNotice that there are 6 teams instead of only 5. This 6th team was essential to the efficient schedule making of the team rosters. Each person has to play somebody each week. Therefore, we couldn't leave anyone out. Chuck's brilliant plan was to put a dummy, decoy team in that we would each have the opportunity to play - and beat. The goal is that this dummy team is so bad, that we will automatically get a win. Let's hope that it plays out that way. I'd hate to lose to The Dumb Old Donkeys. This team name does not mean to show or harbor any ill will towards donkeys. We love donkeys. It is a family joke and it centers around Brian Regan.
Tonight was the night of the Big Draft. We sat around our kitchen table, inhaling our pizza and calling out our picks with much enthusiasm as Chuck called our draft numbers. It felt like the big leagues. Granted, I was only calling out names that Chuck previously wrote down for me, Chloe, himself and the Dumb Old Donkeys. The boys gathered their names thru a highly scientific method - they looked through all their football cards and chose the names of whoever they had. Pure genius. I wish I had football cards.
I'll keep you posted as the season progresses. Gavin refers to our football match-ups each week as "fighting each other". He has no concept of football, but is excited about all the 'fighting' none-the-less. Chuck is taking this as seriously as if he were in the pros...as he should, this is very important afterall...to him. Chloe is thrilled just to be included. She's so excited to have her own purple helmet with a team that has her favorite animal name. It's the little things in life that make her happy. Bennett wishes he was actually out there playing with Tony Romo - he doesn't understand why this is 'fantasy'. I still don't think he grasps the definition of that word. And I, I look forward to seeing my beautiful logo on the screen each week as I check my stats. The colors and team name fit my persona. It was a long, thought out process, but in the end I felt I came up with a very intimidating sounding team name. Just picture these big, burly men tearing down the field with all ferociousness in search of the best house - it is just so exciting.
It's a wonderful thing to share and appreciate your spouse's passion and/or things they like eventhough you may not. If you take the time to enjoy what they value, it shows that you value them. I'm so thankful he's wanting to share all this with us. He could just do like he does every year with a bunch of buddies. But this time he chose to include us...a clueless bunch of people he loves more than football. I may just he hooked on fantasy football for life now.
Gotta love the game!
Bring on football season - we here at the Mallott household are ready!
