Originally, that’s the way I viewed it. A “guy” thing. Although I’m an avid sports fan, I never thought I would be good at it. Too many stats. Too many players. Too many rules.
I became a bartender at a sports bar, and my football knowledge grew. After a while, I was ready to argue#with grown men.
All those seasoned guys, the experts, would come into the bar to watch just about anything. A draft, a pre-season game, an all star game. Those guys. The fanatics. Every game is still important to them because THANK GOD there’s at least a game on. (I’m slowly turning into one of these. The horror!)
I would always stay silent when advanced sports subjects were discussed. I knew I’d get destroyed if I gave a poorly backed up opinion. I waited until it was something I knew thoroughly.
A common occurrence would go something like this:
“COME ON! That was a horrible call. That was definitely a touchdown!”
“No it wasn’t.”
Long pause. Did a girl really just say this? What could she possibly know? She’s a girl.
“UH…yes, it was little lady. Ya see that little section at the end of the field? The one with the big ole’ yellow U-shaped thingy above it? He caught the ball in it, and when ya do that, it’s a touchdown”, always said condescendingly.
Here we go.
“YES, I do see the end zone, that “little section” of 10 yards. YES, he did catch the ball. First off, he didn’t have control of the ball, but that doesn’t even matter because his left foot was out of bounds. So no, it is NOT a touchdown. This isn’t college. He needs both feet in. Sorry.”
You could hear a pin drop when something like this happened, it was hilarious.
In the past, I remember learning about fantasy when friends would talk about it; live drafts, flex spots#stuff like that. I remember thinking, “this doesn’t seem that hard,” but kept putting it off because I was still too nervous to try.
It wasn’t until this past August that I pushed my fears aside, dropped the $50 and thought, what the hell.
I was ready for the scrutiny from the guys, being the only girl in the league. I wasn’t worried about that, I was used to holding my own. No, it was the little details that made me nervous.
“What if I pick too many players with the same bye week? What if all my good ones get hurt? What if I draft too many running backs and forget to get a decent quarterback? I’m going to make a mistake.”
Then, I stopped, took a big breath and gave myself a pep talk. Who cares? It’s only $50, it will be fun. Don’t draft too heavily on one position, switch out players on a bye, and know who is injury-prone. Calm down.
I stopped freaking out and decided to not care so much about winning since it was my first year. A learning experience. So I only read an article or two before the draft, found out which big players were out for the season, and was off to the races.
The guys were the opposite, they went crazy. They must have traded players a hundred times. Drop. Add. Drop. Add. Drop. Add. They filled the message boards with complaints over this point system or that rule. Sheesh. Why so serious fellas?
I guess not giving a crap can really work out sometimes.
Some of the biggest fantasy veterans and complainers in my league are now 1-7 or 3-5.
Me? I’m 9-0.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just a girl.
