| About Me |
When watching our favorite sporting events, we’ve probably all thought about how we’d do things differently…if only we were the manager or owner. Which players we’d chose. How much we’d spend, and who we’d play each week. It was these types questions that first got me interested in the world of fantasy sports, over 22 years ago.
So where did I get my start? I first discovered fantasy baseball in 1995, and being a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, it seemed like the perfect combination. See for me, it wasn’t just about cheering on my favorite team, but following the players, their stats, their conditioning, the makeup of teams, and the direction the owners were headed. I would pour over the stats each day and develop what I considered were winning teams. It wasn’t long before my successes with fantasy baseball, led me to my first fantasy football team. That’s where things really took off.
My first fantasy football league was through a popular sports network. It was there I learned to look beyond a player’s name and social status, and learned to read their stats and how to project where their season might be headed. From there I ventured into other popular small leagues, winning a few championships along the way. While searching the internet for player information in 2000, I came across the Fantasy Guru site. Having this resource available to me, took my game from small time, to high stakes. In 2007 I had the unique opportunity to draft in the World Championship of Fantasy Football in Las Vegas. This was my first venture into a high stakes league, and gave me a greater insight into how competitive this sport was becoming and how you needed to be ready to make quick, but important decisions. I continued in 2008 with WCOFF, as well as, drafting in the inaugural season for the Fantasy Football Players Championship. In 2009, I played in the Rotobowl, taking my team to the playoffs. It was in 2010 that I added Daily Fantasy Football to my gameplay. This new world of capped salaries and daily lineup changes expanded my skills and have helped make me an overall stronger player. The insights I gained from DFS brought my attention back to IDP leagues, keeper leagues, Scout-FFTL, and FFPC. These types of leagues allow you to play with a greater variety of players, from all walks of life (including professional sports writers), and from all across the country. This brings me to today, where I recently made it to the playoffs in my Scout Online Championship.
So why start a website that helps others who are just starting off in fantasy sports, or who want to take their game to a new level? With so many resource options available to us, it’s not always easy to find reliable sources, especially to those who are new in the sport. Knowing that the source you are using, is giving you sound advice, is one of the keys to a winning team. I’m not here to tell you which players to chose, but rather, to direct you to sources that you should be using to draft and maintain successful teams. My interest doesn’t stop there. For years I have witnessed sources copy other’s information and sell it to unsuspecting players. Besides hurting the original source, these bad sources are also damaging the industry. It’s time we direct players away from these types of sources and redirect them to what will be a win for them, and a win for the industry as a whole.
When I’m not knee-deep in player stats, I spend my days with my wife, two children, and two dogs, just outside the sports-crazed city of Chicago. In my free-time you’ll find me cooking, traveling (with stops at sports venues around the world) and relaxing on the water at my family’s lake home. |
