Ask ArenaBoy
By Richard Giorgi
From humble beginnings
The road to greatness is never without it's bumps and bruises. Back in 2002, I was faced with a decision. The NFL Fantasy season had just wound down and I found myself not wanting to step into normal society. After all, the NFL allows me to deal not with people, but with pixelized fantasies, dashing across a screen and into my scorecard, allowing me the sugar rush of the Win and the caffeine crash of the Loss.
So I looked around me, took stock of my friends, thought about perhaps persuing a relationship, and all of those tasted to me like a 3-week old open tub of plain yogurt.
Yet there was this game I had heard about -- football played indoors. It intrigued me, made me wonder aloud: Could this be played as a fantasy game? It's got the same stats? It's got similar players? It's got helmets, shoulderpads, cheerleaders, endzones, yard markers, walls and a net?
So I started an Arena Fantasy Football league. Spreadsheet only scoring, with statistics as hard to come by as admissions of guilt from the IRS.
I was a visionary.
But that's all a lie. An utter, bald-faced, buzzard lie. Fabrication. Untruth. And I'm ashamed for even writing it.
Because it was not me, but your very own Philosopher of Arena Football who was our Braveheart. He painted his face and rallied the rag-tag minions and developed a scoring system and filled in lineups for uninterested owners and ran a Dummy team to round out the league. He was the visionary. He was the Little Engine that Could.
Me? I wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing. It wasn't "real" football, after all, and I was feeling somewhat snobby at the time. My real passion was the New York Football Giants and I saw no sense in what was, to me, an offshoot of indoor soccer with pads.
Forgive me... it was another lifetime ago.
Thankfully, the Philosopher would not be denied and badgered me the following year. "Play with us," he said in his best Pusher voice. "Just try some. You'll like it, you'll see." So I did it. I felt sorry for him, to tell the absolute truth and thought it was such a small thing to be involved in even if I didn't pay attention.
THAT is what they call denial. Not be fully involved? Not pay attention? Couldn't happen.
That first year I drafted Damien Harrell and Chris Jackson with the last pick in the first round and the first pick in the second round. Later, I added Jim Kubiak and Tyrone Jones. Mathias Vavao was my FB (from Los Angeles during the Graziani days). Brian Gowins was my kicker and somehow I even ended up with Hunkie Cooper. I outscored everyone that year except the Philosopher, but by bad scheduling luck neither of us made the playoffs. That Arena Bowl was won by an Andy Kelly and James Hundon led team, and I vowed I wouldn't get beaten again.
But I have gotten beaten. And I've won some too. And I've loved every second of it and spread the gospel of Arena to anyone within earshot, which, believe me, makes me somewhat annoying.
So yeah, the Philosopher is ultimately responsible for all this. And for you NFL snobs out there, if you don't have a Philosopher in your life and haven't had the pleasure of losing when your QB connects for 8 TDs in a single game, you don't know what you're missing.
So join us... come on... it's warm down here once you're totally submerged.
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