Big XII Fantasy League

It's that time of year again: college football season. And there really isn't a better way to enjoy the sport of football than through fantasy leagues. Mads, my Norwegian companion, and I have been involved in a Big XII fantasy league for about ten years now, and this year is no different. We play with people from a whole cross-section of society, like Ukrainian Hank and Martinson Agunga Agunga, two of our favorite night club owners; Tim Gunn of the Parsons School of Design at the New School University in New York; former Red Sox greats Mike Greenwell, Dwight Evans, and Marty Barrett; our friend Trajan, the author; actors Sam Elliott and Ben Affleck; and unfortunately this year will be our first without Casper Weinberger, who left us for a better place this past spring.

Anyway, my best year was '01, when I got the chance to draft first and scooped eventual Heisman winner Eric Crouch. Last year my strategy backfired, as I drank the Texas A&M Kool-Aid and loaded my team up with Aggies. They were projected to go far in many polls, yet their talent was largely under the radar. No dice, though. Actually Ukrainian Hank was the winner, because he got some inside information on Rhett Bomar, who he got for next to nothing, then got solid returns out of Texas Tech running back Taurean Henderson. Mads figured he had it in the bag, when he was able to pick first and took Vince Young, so he drafted poorly after that, and found himself being beaten weekly by more well rounded squads like Ukrainian Hank's. Still, his Vince Young et al team came in third, behind Ukrainian Hank's team and Mike "The Gator" Greenwell's that had Adrian Peterson and Iowa State QB Bret Meyer.

This year's draft has been in shambles because players keep getting suspended or dismissed. We had to call an emergency meeting when Rhett Bomar was bounced. I think I now know what it's like for people doing SEC or ACC fantasy leagues, only at least when you're in one of those, you know a Bobby Bowden or a Phil Fulmer ain't gonna kick his star quarterback off the team for a silly infraction like getting paid for work he didn't do. Maybe next year we'll switch over to a WAC fantasy league.