After finishing the regular season 1-2 in the league rankings, the Knights and the Coleman Isms received first-round byes for the playoffs.
The first-round games featured the fifth-seeded Walking Dead taking on the fourth seeded Wildcats, while the sixth-seeded Fox Hounds battled the third-seeded Washington Praetorians. The Dead got great performances by QB Matt Ryan (43.80 points) and RB Ray Rice (21.90) and clobbered the Cats by more than 50 points. Meanwhile, the Hounds used monster performances by QB Tony Romo (43.84) and WR Ted Ginn (20.70) and upset the Praetorians by about 20 points. With no re-seeding in our league, the semi-finals were set: Dead vs. Knights and Hounds vs. Isms. I liked my matchup!
I made no tweaks to my roster during weeks 14-15. I figured if everyone plays the way they're supposed to play, I should win. While the Chargers, after another frantic late season charge, were being eliminated from the playoff race in Detroit, I kept tabs on my other team. Tom Brady and the NYJ Defense once again pitched in big, with 35 and 29 points, respectively, and the Isms showed the Hounds the playoff door with a win by 11 points. On the other side of the bracket, the Knights got only 12 points from QB Josh Freeman, but WR Calvin Johnson destroyed the Chargers defense with 214 receiving yards and a couple of touchdowns. He had a sick week, with 40.40 points, and RB LeSean McCoy was not far behind, scoring 3 TDs and amassing 28.70 points. The Knights rose up when it counted easily eliminating the Dead by 35 points.
Thus, the championship game would be as it should have been: the two top seeds, mano-a-mano, with the title at stake. The Isms would have their shot at revenge for our loss to the Knights in the regular season. Again, I liked my chances. I had won the semi-final despite scoring only 106 points. I figured my guys were due. Similarly, the Knights still had Freeman at QB, and Johnson and McCoy couldn't possibly duplicate their mammoth performances of week 15, right? One thing, though: The Knights had beaten the dead despite getting only 5 points from uber-TE Rob Gronkowski. As before, the key to my winning it all was simple: I needed for Brady to pass for 400 yards and 5 TDS, with none of them going to Gronkowski!
I knew needed help at TE, as Anthony Fasano, Jake Ballard, and Dallas Clark were all injured. I waived Clark and Ballard and added Anthony Fasano and Joel Dressen. Dressen became my starting TE for the Big Game. I also did something symbolic, waiving Terrell Owens and re-claiming Fred Jackson, the Buffalo Bills RB who had helped me win so many games before getting hurt. He would be an Ism for posterity!
I must say, the game was a bit anti-climatic, probably just because the Isms didn't win. The game was close enough. Tom Brady again worked his magic with 33.86 points, and even Larry Fitzgerald got some bonus points (19.5). And, Gronk only got 7.80 points, but it wasn't enough to overcome an unexpected great week from the Knights' utility player, Josh Cribbs (28.50). I lost the championship by 11 points!
Still, looking back on the whole season, it was very interesting and engaging and a lot of fun. I have to say that I will probably play one fantasy team each year, from now on. Commissioner Ryan has already let me know that our league will be back, so I'm ready to do it again. But, next season will be remembered as the Year of the Ism!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
My First Season In Fantasyland (Part 3)
With my entire starting lineup back in place for Week 9, I was hopeful the Isms would turn things around and get back to their winning ways. I also did something a little unusual. This was around the time that Terrell Owens, who had not been signed by anyone and who hadn't played all year, held a public workout and generated speculation that he might be picked up by an NFL team. Needing a better option at WR opposite Larry Fitzgerald, and no longer needing a backup defense, I took a chance and dropped the Tennessee Titans "D," adding Owens to the Isms roster. It turned out to be a non-earth-shaking move, as T.O. couldn't get anyone to take a chance on him. Thus ended the NFL career of a sure-fire Hall of Famer. As for the game, the Isms beat the Gangiasinophonicons by about 40 points, so it looked like I was back.
For the first time all season, I made no roster moves during Week 10. As it turned out, I didn't need to, as my team was playing the Dakota Storm, the only team in the league not to have won a game. We won handily, by 33 points, led by banner weeks from Tom Brady (37.36 points) and Larry Fitzgerald, who finally played like Larry Fitzgerald (29.60). As for the Storm, they came close on more than one occasion, but they never did win a game during the season (bummer). After the win, Redskins QB Rex Grossman became available and Matt Cassell officially became Matt Cassualty!
Week 11 brought the Isms' showdown with the league's other powerhouse team, the Knights, who were sitting pretty with a 9-1 record, while we were at 8-2. The Knights had been upset in Week 10 by the Gangliasinophonicons, the same team I'd beaten easily the previous week, so I figured I had a chance. With a win, and already leading the Knights in overall points scored, I would reclaim the top ranking in the league, but a win would not be easy. Their ranking stud player was none other than Rob Gronkowski, the best TE in the NFL, this year. The Isms were still in first place in Division 1, but only by a game over the Walking Dead, who'd run off a five-game winning streak since starting the year 2-3.
My blueprint for a victory over the Knights was simple: With my top RB, Fred Jackson having been slowed by injury, I needed Tom Brady to go out and throw about five touchdown passes, but none of them to Gronkowski! It didn't happen. Brady scored only 21 points (he was out-scored by the Knights' QB, Josh Freeman!) , I got just 8 points from Jackson and Beanie Wells, combined, and the Isms got shown up, losing the game by nearly 50 points. Combine that result with the Walking Dead blasting Bolt Man by more than 100 points (ug-lee!) and we were now tied for first place in Division 1 with 8-3 record. The Isms still led in overall fantasy points, but the Dead had now won six straight! With seven teams vying for only six playoff spots, I was sweating it, because if I lost my last two regular season games, I could still finish out of the championship tournament!
Prior to Week 12, the Buffalo Bills decided they'd seen enough, placing Fred Jackson on injured reserve. I was suddenly without my best back! I dropped Jackson, replacing him with Chris Ogbonnaya, and moved Kendall Hunter into my starting lineup. Not to worry, though, as Brady and Wells had monster weeks, and my opponent, Sweet P, barely put up a fight, scoring only 51 points. The Isms won by more than 70 points! The Walking Dead won too, their seventh in a row, to stay right with me, just edging the Wildcats (112-109) in a showdown of playoff contenders.
With one week to go, the Isms(9-3), Dead (9-3), Knights (10-2), and Wildcats (8-4) were joined by the NW Boltz (8-4), Fox Hounds (8-4), and Washington Praetorians (8-4) as the playoff hopefuls. The Knights had been upset in Week 12 by the Boltz, so the Isms still had a shot at grabbing the #1 overall seed for the tournament. On the other hand, if I lost the final game and the Dead walked to their eight victory in a row, I would finish in second place, although my total fantasy points pretty much assured that I would not miss the playoffs.
I had to make still another roster move, as the Vikings put Michael Jenkins on I.R. I welcomed Damian Williams to the Isms. During Week 13 I found out what Fantasy Football is really all about. With my beloved Chargers having routed the Jaguars in a Thursday night matchup, all I could think of was how my fantasy stars were doing in their games. My final opponent was the NW Boltz, who'd just upset the Knights and badly needed a win. Our matchup went back-and-forth, and so did the projection of the winning team. It was very, very nerve-wracking, especially since the Boltz QB, Philip Rivers, had scored nearly 34 points. Tom Brady missed a 300-yard passing game, and the bonus points that milestone would have garnered, by 11 yards, winding up more than 10 points behind Rivers. I got decent contributions from Beanie Wells, Santonio Holmes, Devin Hester, and Nick Novak. Somehow, some way, the Isms managed to squeak out a win by exactly two points (101.86-99.86)! If there was a closer winning score in the league all year, I didn't notice it...
As for the rest of the league, the good news was that the Knights lost to the Black & Gold by 22 points. The bad news was that they'd still scored 135 points in the defeat, so even though both teams finished with 10-3 records, the Knights grabbed the top playoff seed over the Isms by less than 19 points! The other good news was that the Walking Dead finally had their long win streak ended in a loss to the Gangliasinophonicons. The Praetorians and Wildcats were easy winners, but the Fox Hounds came up flat in a loss to Team Ram Rod. The division winners were the Isms, Wildcats, Knights, and Praetorians. The wild card playoff spots went to the Dead and the Hounds, who finished about 40 points ahead of the Boltz. (The Boltz became the top seed in our league's consolation playoff tourney.)
I'll finish this review next week, with a look at what happened in the playoffs.
For the first time all season, I made no roster moves during Week 10. As it turned out, I didn't need to, as my team was playing the Dakota Storm, the only team in the league not to have won a game. We won handily, by 33 points, led by banner weeks from Tom Brady (37.36 points) and Larry Fitzgerald, who finally played like Larry Fitzgerald (29.60). As for the Storm, they came close on more than one occasion, but they never did win a game during the season (bummer). After the win, Redskins QB Rex Grossman became available and Matt Cassell officially became Matt Cassualty!
Week 11 brought the Isms' showdown with the league's other powerhouse team, the Knights, who were sitting pretty with a 9-1 record, while we were at 8-2. The Knights had been upset in Week 10 by the Gangliasinophonicons, the same team I'd beaten easily the previous week, so I figured I had a chance. With a win, and already leading the Knights in overall points scored, I would reclaim the top ranking in the league, but a win would not be easy. Their ranking stud player was none other than Rob Gronkowski, the best TE in the NFL, this year. The Isms were still in first place in Division 1, but only by a game over the Walking Dead, who'd run off a five-game winning streak since starting the year 2-3.
My blueprint for a victory over the Knights was simple: With my top RB, Fred Jackson having been slowed by injury, I needed Tom Brady to go out and throw about five touchdown passes, but none of them to Gronkowski! It didn't happen. Brady scored only 21 points (he was out-scored by the Knights' QB, Josh Freeman!) , I got just 8 points from Jackson and Beanie Wells, combined, and the Isms got shown up, losing the game by nearly 50 points. Combine that result with the Walking Dead blasting Bolt Man by more than 100 points (ug-lee!) and we were now tied for first place in Division 1 with 8-3 record. The Isms still led in overall fantasy points, but the Dead had now won six straight! With seven teams vying for only six playoff spots, I was sweating it, because if I lost my last two regular season games, I could still finish out of the championship tournament!
Prior to Week 12, the Buffalo Bills decided they'd seen enough, placing Fred Jackson on injured reserve. I was suddenly without my best back! I dropped Jackson, replacing him with Chris Ogbonnaya, and moved Kendall Hunter into my starting lineup. Not to worry, though, as Brady and Wells had monster weeks, and my opponent, Sweet P, barely put up a fight, scoring only 51 points. The Isms won by more than 70 points! The Walking Dead won too, their seventh in a row, to stay right with me, just edging the Wildcats (112-109) in a showdown of playoff contenders.
With one week to go, the Isms(9-3), Dead (9-3), Knights (10-2), and Wildcats (8-4) were joined by the NW Boltz (8-4), Fox Hounds (8-4), and Washington Praetorians (8-4) as the playoff hopefuls. The Knights had been upset in Week 12 by the Boltz, so the Isms still had a shot at grabbing the #1 overall seed for the tournament. On the other hand, if I lost the final game and the Dead walked to their eight victory in a row, I would finish in second place, although my total fantasy points pretty much assured that I would not miss the playoffs.
I had to make still another roster move, as the Vikings put Michael Jenkins on I.R. I welcomed Damian Williams to the Isms. During Week 13 I found out what Fantasy Football is really all about. With my beloved Chargers having routed the Jaguars in a Thursday night matchup, all I could think of was how my fantasy stars were doing in their games. My final opponent was the NW Boltz, who'd just upset the Knights and badly needed a win. Our matchup went back-and-forth, and so did the projection of the winning team. It was very, very nerve-wracking, especially since the Boltz QB, Philip Rivers, had scored nearly 34 points. Tom Brady missed a 300-yard passing game, and the bonus points that milestone would have garnered, by 11 yards, winding up more than 10 points behind Rivers. I got decent contributions from Beanie Wells, Santonio Holmes, Devin Hester, and Nick Novak. Somehow, some way, the Isms managed to squeak out a win by exactly two points (101.86-99.86)! If there was a closer winning score in the league all year, I didn't notice it...
As for the rest of the league, the good news was that the Knights lost to the Black & Gold by 22 points. The bad news was that they'd still scored 135 points in the defeat, so even though both teams finished with 10-3 records, the Knights grabbed the top playoff seed over the Isms by less than 19 points! The other good news was that the Walking Dead finally had their long win streak ended in a loss to the Gangliasinophonicons. The Praetorians and Wildcats were easy winners, but the Fox Hounds came up flat in a loss to Team Ram Rod. The division winners were the Isms, Wildcats, Knights, and Praetorians. The wild card playoff spots went to the Dead and the Hounds, who finished about 40 points ahead of the Boltz. (The Boltz became the top seed in our league's consolation playoff tourney.)
I'll finish this review next week, with a look at what happened in the playoffs.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
My First Season In Fantasyland (Part Two)
I watched the Coleman Isms (or Isms, as I sometimes refer to them) go out and have a good first week, whipping the OmegaPsiPhi Dogs by nearly 70 points! Hey, this might not be so bad! My initial starters were Tom Brady, Beanie Wells, Fred Jackson, Larry Fitzgerald, Davone Bess, Dallas Clark, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Nick Folk, and the Jets Defense. Brady racked up a 53-point game, what with 517 yards passing! Everybody else on my team did pretty well, except for Dallas (no Peyton Manning) Clark and Fitz, who had a mild 62 yards receiving and no touchdowns!
Having failed to acquire any Chargers via trade, I went to the list of available players (otherwise known as the waiver wire) and set out to "improve" my team. First of all, Ryan offered me Tashard Choice for Ronnie Brown. Done. I then waived Choice, Deji Karim, and Jason Snelling, adding my first Charger, Jacob Hester, and two Arizona Cardinals (my eight-year old son's favorite team), Early Doucet and LaRod Stephens-Howling.
My newly-configured team then went out and dismantled the Walking Dead. Brady came back after his big debut week with a 41-point effort (against the Chargers, dang!), Fitz played like Fitz and got 25 more, the Jets defense checked in with 33 points. Even Dallas Clark got me 9 points! But, my eyes lit up as Fred Jackson had his second straight impressive game, this time with 30 points. I had offered Jackson up as trade bait in part of my effort to get a Charger or two, but I had to rethink that strategy, as after two weeks, Jackson (and not Peterson, Foster, Jones-Drew, etc.) was the #1 fantasy running back in the league! Even though the Dead scored 50 more points than the Dogs had the previous week, the Isms still beat them by almost 30 points. In fact, the 184 points my team racked up in Week 2 was the best by any team in the league, all year!
I had noticed that this was a very quiet league. No one was using the chatter box. So, I called out all of the other owners, declaring that I obviously had the best team and could not be stopped. I even invited all of them to just put my name on the championship trophy, right there and then! Amazingly, I only got a couple of responses to my rant! This would have to be the quietest fantasy football league on record, I guessed...
One of my fellow players (Jon of the Black & Gold) soon offered me a package of players (but no Chargers) for Fred Jackson, but I turned him down. It was at that point that a light bulb came on in my head and I realized that I would need to have players ready to replace my starters whose NFL teams were having their bye week in upcoming weeks. I made a flurry of roster moves to ensure that I would have backups at every position, at the ready. Hester, Stephens-Howling, Doucet, and Braylon Edwards had to go. In their places came Jeff King, Denarius Moore, Preston Parker, and my replacement token Charger, Nick Novak. I figured no one would have picked Novak up that early in the season. He turned out to be a very good pickup.
The Isms struck again in Week 3, beating Team RamRod by about 22 points. I would have scored more, but my schedule got busy and I missed the fact the Beanie Wells was made inactive for that week by the Cardinals. I wouldn't make that mistake, again! Brady got 37 more points, as he was absolutely on fire early in the season, and Jackson showed I'd made the right move by getting me 22 more points. Denarius Moore had 13 points in his first week as a starter, about a point more than Fitz!
Jon and I finally made a trade. He sent me three players (Santonio Holmes, Devin Hester, and Ryan Grant) for BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Holmes would be my new starting receiver and Hester, my new utility player. To make the deal work, though, I had to drop Denarius Moore and Marcell Reece, whom I'd just picked up after waiving Preston Parker. The Isms juggernaut rolled on, as I flattened Commisioner Ryan's H-Bombers by almost 90 points! Brady had an ordinary week, with only 226 yard and two TDs, for just under 20 points, but Beanie Wells went off for almost 35 points, Devin Hester sprinted to 20 points, and the Jets defense did everything and pulled down 42 points! I was looking awesome!
More roster moves preceded Week 5, as I looked for a running back who could spell both of my starters. I dropped Ryan Grant for Stefan Logan, then dropped Logan for Cadillac Williams. It was hard to stop the Coleman Isms, though, as they scored almost twice as many points as did Bolt Man in our matchup. Brady was again under 20 points (I guess he was human, after all...), but Fred Jackson continued to astound, bagging 28 points, while the Jets defense added 26.
The first byes to affect the Isms were in Week 6. Cadillac Williams would start for Beanie Wells, and Davone Bess would start for Larry Fitzgerald. It was more of the same in that week's game, however, as I beat the Highlanders by almost 70 points! Tom Brady was just an ordinary QB, again, with about 18 points, but Fred Jackson nabbed 28 more, the Jet defense had 36, and Devin Hester put up 35 big ones! Even Santonio got 12 points that week, but he would soon be a major source of frustration. The Isms were now 6-0!
Week 7 marked the midway point of the 13-game fantasy regular season. (It is wise for fantasy commisioners to avoid the NFL's Week 17!) Little did I know it, but my six weeks of euphoria was about to come to end. I welcomed back Wells and Fitz, but this was the week that Tom Brady and Fred Jackson had their byes! I promoted Nick Novak to starting kicker over Nick Folk (a good move), but then the bomb dropped. Jason Campbell, who had played very well for Oakland for most of six weeks, was announced as out for the season! I had to scramble for a new QB, first adding the Raiders' backup, Kyle Boller, then replacing him at the last minute with the Chiefs's starter, Matt Cassell. I also replaced Cadillac Williams, who'd sustained an injury, with Tim Hightower and swapped out TE Jeff King for Jake Ballard.
None of it mattered! I'd been averaging 150 points per game, but this time I came in at just 56.44 points, losing to the Wildcats by nearly 35 points! The only double-figure points came from the NYJ defense. Devin Hester had 8 points, as did Hightower in his starting debut, but Dallas Clark got a big, fat zero! Fitz had 7, Wells had 4, Santonio had 2.4. But, that still beat the putrid output of Matt Cassell, who passed for 161 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions (and still beat the Raiders, 28-0!). Add in a loss of two yards rushing, and Cassell came in with a whopping 2.24 points! That was 2.24 points more than a dead man!! I vowed that afternoon that, as soon as I could do it without hurting my team any further, Matt Cassell would become Matt Cassualty!
I couldn't put Brady and Jackson back in my starting lineup fast enough! Jake Ballard was also promoted to starting TE over Dallas Clark. Frustrated, I finally cut the unproductive Davone Bess and added Michael Jenkins. And, wouldn't you know it, Tim Hightower sustained a season-ending injury during Week 7, so I cut him and added Kendall Hunter, who at least gave me stability at backup RB the rest of the season. For Week 8, I would have to do without Devin Hester and the New York Jets defense, as they had their bye week. I started the Tennessee Titans "D," and they brought in almost 23 points, which is not bad. I still lost to the Fox Hounds by 12.5 points, though, because Tom Brady (about 17 points) had turned into an average QB, Michael Jenkins got only 3 points in his start for Santonio Holmes, and Kendall Hunter got even less than that (2.6) in Hester's spot! After 8 games my once-awesome 6-0 record had fallen to 6-2. Things were definitely heading in the wrong direction.
I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I had boasted too soon!
Having failed to acquire any Chargers via trade, I went to the list of available players (otherwise known as the waiver wire) and set out to "improve" my team. First of all, Ryan offered me Tashard Choice for Ronnie Brown. Done. I then waived Choice, Deji Karim, and Jason Snelling, adding my first Charger, Jacob Hester, and two Arizona Cardinals (my eight-year old son's favorite team), Early Doucet and LaRod Stephens-Howling.
My newly-configured team then went out and dismantled the Walking Dead. Brady came back after his big debut week with a 41-point effort (against the Chargers, dang!), Fitz played like Fitz and got 25 more, the Jets defense checked in with 33 points. Even Dallas Clark got me 9 points! But, my eyes lit up as Fred Jackson had his second straight impressive game, this time with 30 points. I had offered Jackson up as trade bait in part of my effort to get a Charger or two, but I had to rethink that strategy, as after two weeks, Jackson (and not Peterson, Foster, Jones-Drew, etc.) was the #1 fantasy running back in the league! Even though the Dead scored 50 more points than the Dogs had the previous week, the Isms still beat them by almost 30 points. In fact, the 184 points my team racked up in Week 2 was the best by any team in the league, all year!
I had noticed that this was a very quiet league. No one was using the chatter box. So, I called out all of the other owners, declaring that I obviously had the best team and could not be stopped. I even invited all of them to just put my name on the championship trophy, right there and then! Amazingly, I only got a couple of responses to my rant! This would have to be the quietest fantasy football league on record, I guessed...
One of my fellow players (Jon of the Black & Gold) soon offered me a package of players (but no Chargers) for Fred Jackson, but I turned him down. It was at that point that a light bulb came on in my head and I realized that I would need to have players ready to replace my starters whose NFL teams were having their bye week in upcoming weeks. I made a flurry of roster moves to ensure that I would have backups at every position, at the ready. Hester, Stephens-Howling, Doucet, and Braylon Edwards had to go. In their places came Jeff King, Denarius Moore, Preston Parker, and my replacement token Charger, Nick Novak. I figured no one would have picked Novak up that early in the season. He turned out to be a very good pickup.
The Isms struck again in Week 3, beating Team RamRod by about 22 points. I would have scored more, but my schedule got busy and I missed the fact the Beanie Wells was made inactive for that week by the Cardinals. I wouldn't make that mistake, again! Brady got 37 more points, as he was absolutely on fire early in the season, and Jackson showed I'd made the right move by getting me 22 more points. Denarius Moore had 13 points in his first week as a starter, about a point more than Fitz!
Jon and I finally made a trade. He sent me three players (Santonio Holmes, Devin Hester, and Ryan Grant) for BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Holmes would be my new starting receiver and Hester, my new utility player. To make the deal work, though, I had to drop Denarius Moore and Marcell Reece, whom I'd just picked up after waiving Preston Parker. The Isms juggernaut rolled on, as I flattened Commisioner Ryan's H-Bombers by almost 90 points! Brady had an ordinary week, with only 226 yard and two TDs, for just under 20 points, but Beanie Wells went off for almost 35 points, Devin Hester sprinted to 20 points, and the Jets defense did everything and pulled down 42 points! I was looking awesome!
More roster moves preceded Week 5, as I looked for a running back who could spell both of my starters. I dropped Ryan Grant for Stefan Logan, then dropped Logan for Cadillac Williams. It was hard to stop the Coleman Isms, though, as they scored almost twice as many points as did Bolt Man in our matchup. Brady was again under 20 points (I guess he was human, after all...), but Fred Jackson continued to astound, bagging 28 points, while the Jets defense added 26.
The first byes to affect the Isms were in Week 6. Cadillac Williams would start for Beanie Wells, and Davone Bess would start for Larry Fitzgerald. It was more of the same in that week's game, however, as I beat the Highlanders by almost 70 points! Tom Brady was just an ordinary QB, again, with about 18 points, but Fred Jackson nabbed 28 more, the Jet defense had 36, and Devin Hester put up 35 big ones! Even Santonio got 12 points that week, but he would soon be a major source of frustration. The Isms were now 6-0!
Week 7 marked the midway point of the 13-game fantasy regular season. (It is wise for fantasy commisioners to avoid the NFL's Week 17!) Little did I know it, but my six weeks of euphoria was about to come to end. I welcomed back Wells and Fitz, but this was the week that Tom Brady and Fred Jackson had their byes! I promoted Nick Novak to starting kicker over Nick Folk (a good move), but then the bomb dropped. Jason Campbell, who had played very well for Oakland for most of six weeks, was announced as out for the season! I had to scramble for a new QB, first adding the Raiders' backup, Kyle Boller, then replacing him at the last minute with the Chiefs's starter, Matt Cassell. I also replaced Cadillac Williams, who'd sustained an injury, with Tim Hightower and swapped out TE Jeff King for Jake Ballard.
None of it mattered! I'd been averaging 150 points per game, but this time I came in at just 56.44 points, losing to the Wildcats by nearly 35 points! The only double-figure points came from the NYJ defense. Devin Hester had 8 points, as did Hightower in his starting debut, but Dallas Clark got a big, fat zero! Fitz had 7, Wells had 4, Santonio had 2.4. But, that still beat the putrid output of Matt Cassell, who passed for 161 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions (and still beat the Raiders, 28-0!). Add in a loss of two yards rushing, and Cassell came in with a whopping 2.24 points! That was 2.24 points more than a dead man!! I vowed that afternoon that, as soon as I could do it without hurting my team any further, Matt Cassell would become Matt Cassualty!
I couldn't put Brady and Jackson back in my starting lineup fast enough! Jake Ballard was also promoted to starting TE over Dallas Clark. Frustrated, I finally cut the unproductive Davone Bess and added Michael Jenkins. And, wouldn't you know it, Tim Hightower sustained a season-ending injury during Week 7, so I cut him and added Kendall Hunter, who at least gave me stability at backup RB the rest of the season. For Week 8, I would have to do without Devin Hester and the New York Jets defense, as they had their bye week. I started the Tennessee Titans "D," and they brought in almost 23 points, which is not bad. I still lost to the Fox Hounds by 12.5 points, though, because Tom Brady (about 17 points) had turned into an average QB, Michael Jenkins got only 3 points in his start for Santonio Holmes, and Kendall Hunter got even less than that (2.6) in Hester's spot! After 8 games my once-awesome 6-0 record had fallen to 6-2. Things were definitely heading in the wrong direction.
I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I had boasted too soon!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
My First Season In Fantasyland (Part One)
During the past pro football season, I played Fantasy Football for the first time. An old friend, Ryan, whom I've known since seventh grade, invited me to join the league for which he serves as commissioner, FootballFever! I am always so busy, but it sounded like fun and I thought it might spice up the season, a bit, so I accepted the invitation and joined.
I'm not like some people, who operate a dozen or more fantasy teams at a time. I mean, I'm a sports fanatic, but I'm not crazy! I went with just one team. For a team name, I chose Coleman Isms, which is a reference to sports broadcaster (and former New York Yankee second baseman) Jerry Coleman... no relation to me! You see, the junior high school where I met Ryan is in San Diego. Jerry Coleman, the longtime voice of the San Diego Padres, has a tendency to form memorable malaprops... slips of the tongue while he's trying to inform his audience. Some of his quotes ("Winfield hits his head against the wall!... It's rolling towards second base!!!") have become legendary, and are known to San Diegans as Colemanisms. I first used the name Coleman Isms for a tabletop baseball league (Pursue the Pennant) that I was in many years ago. I even created a logo and had it transferred onto a button, back then. So, I dug out the button, scanned it, and I had a pretty credible-looking logo for my new venture!
The first step was to rate the players at each position. The computer program for NFL Fantasy Football would then use these ratings, along with the draft order determined by the commissioner, to draft a roster of 15 players (or defenses) for each team in the league. I would play with 15 other guys and gals. The league was arranged into four divisions. My team was in Division 1. Each team owner would play a game in a given NFL week against another team, choosing 9 "players" (1 QB, 2 RBs, 2WRs, 1 TE, 1 Utility player (WR or RB), 1 K, and 1 Team Defense) as starters for that week.
I was pretty much satisfied with my initial roster, except for one very big thing: There were no San Diego Chargers on it! FootballFever, as you might have gathered, is a San Diego-based league, where Chargers are valued above all. (Chargers QB Philip Rivers was the #1 overall pick in the draft. Need I say more?) Each round in the draft was reversed, so while I picked 14th in Round 1 of the draft, I picked third in Round 2. It alternated like that for the rest of the draft.
With Rivers, as much as I love him, being over-valued in our league, I got stuck with the fifth QB selected, overall, as my top pick. With Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Michael Vick already taken, that fella named Tom Brady fell to me! Brady was the last QB taken in the first round. He was the player I rated first overall, and that really saved me. I know you're curious, so I'll tell you, the 11 other first-round choices were Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Arian Foster, Ray Rice, Jamaal Charles, Matt Forte, LeSean McCoy, Rashard Mendenhall, Mike Wallace, Darren McFadden, and Maurice Jones-Drew. (Perennial first-round pick Peyton Manning was already known to be injured and likely out for the year.)
With my second-rounder (# 19, overall), I got WR Larry Fitzgerald, so I wound up with the top quarterback and top receiver on my board, both of whom are "undroppable" players - players whose value is so high that for them to be released might upset the balance of the league. Not bad, so far! The third pick, TE Dallas Clark, would normally have been fine, except he would be without his star QB on the Colts, Peyton Manning. As it turned out, Clark would be of little use, having by far the worst year of his career!
The next three spots were all taken by running backs. There were no premium backs left by then, so I wound up with Beanie Wells, Fred Jackson, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis. I figured I would have running back-by-committee, and hoped for the best. The seventh-rounder, WR Braylon Edwards, did not impress me at all. He was moving to a new team and I just had a sense he would not be good for much. (I was right.) Choice # 8, though, turned out to be the steal of the draft, as I got the opportunistic New York Jets defense, which turned out to be the top defense in the league. My kicker came next, Nick Folk, also of the Jets. I would have much preferred the Chargers' Nate Kaeding, but the Jets have a good offense and I figured Folk would have his opportunities. (As it turned out, Kaeding was injured on the season's opening kickoff and was lost for the year, so it was good I didn't get him.)
Numbers 10-13 didn't do much for me: RB Ronnie Brown, WR Davone Bess (I hoped he might be my other starting WR, over Braylon Edwards), RB Jason Snelling, and RB Deji Karim. The last two picks were my backup QB and Team Defense, Jason Campbell and the Tennessee Titans, respectively. I thought both of these selections might pay off for me.
As I mentioned, overall I was happy with my team, but I just had to find a way to get some Chargers onto it! Since I thought my running backs were just okay, and I also needed a good receiver, I proposed trades for Ryan Mathews, Mike Tolbert, Vincent Jackson, and Malcom Floyd. There were absolutely no takers! Like I said, this was a San Diego-based league. My biggest trading play, though, showed my absolute loyalty to the Chargers. (I had previouisly spent 14 years of my life cheering them on from season tickets at San Diego Stadium.) I offered a guy Tom Brady and Dallas Clark for Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates! This was a steal for the guy I proposed it to, or so I thought. No one knew Clark was going to be as bad (and injured) as he was, but Gates was hobbling around on one foot, too. Brady certainly outperformed Rivers during the year, but no one knew it would be by that much, as Rivers had by far his worst statistical year as a starter. If the other guy had made the trade, he might have won our league!
As it was, the season kicked off. It would be a very interesting and very entertaining year...
I'm not like some people, who operate a dozen or more fantasy teams at a time. I mean, I'm a sports fanatic, but I'm not crazy! I went with just one team. For a team name, I chose Coleman Isms, which is a reference to sports broadcaster (and former New York Yankee second baseman) Jerry Coleman... no relation to me! You see, the junior high school where I met Ryan is in San Diego. Jerry Coleman, the longtime voice of the San Diego Padres, has a tendency to form memorable malaprops... slips of the tongue while he's trying to inform his audience. Some of his quotes ("Winfield hits his head against the wall!... It's rolling towards second base!!!") have become legendary, and are known to San Diegans as Colemanisms. I first used the name Coleman Isms for a tabletop baseball league (Pursue the Pennant) that I was in many years ago. I even created a logo and had it transferred onto a button, back then. So, I dug out the button, scanned it, and I had a pretty credible-looking logo for my new venture!
The first step was to rate the players at each position. The computer program for NFL Fantasy Football would then use these ratings, along with the draft order determined by the commissioner, to draft a roster of 15 players (or defenses) for each team in the league. I would play with 15 other guys and gals. The league was arranged into four divisions. My team was in Division 1. Each team owner would play a game in a given NFL week against another team, choosing 9 "players" (1 QB, 2 RBs, 2WRs, 1 TE, 1 Utility player (WR or RB), 1 K, and 1 Team Defense) as starters for that week.
I was pretty much satisfied with my initial roster, except for one very big thing: There were no San Diego Chargers on it! FootballFever, as you might have gathered, is a San Diego-based league, where Chargers are valued above all. (Chargers QB Philip Rivers was the #1 overall pick in the draft. Need I say more?) Each round in the draft was reversed, so while I picked 14th in Round 1 of the draft, I picked third in Round 2. It alternated like that for the rest of the draft.
With Rivers, as much as I love him, being over-valued in our league, I got stuck with the fifth QB selected, overall, as my top pick. With Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Michael Vick already taken, that fella named Tom Brady fell to me! Brady was the last QB taken in the first round. He was the player I rated first overall, and that really saved me. I know you're curious, so I'll tell you, the 11 other first-round choices were Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Arian Foster, Ray Rice, Jamaal Charles, Matt Forte, LeSean McCoy, Rashard Mendenhall, Mike Wallace, Darren McFadden, and Maurice Jones-Drew. (Perennial first-round pick Peyton Manning was already known to be injured and likely out for the year.)
With my second-rounder (# 19, overall), I got WR Larry Fitzgerald, so I wound up with the top quarterback and top receiver on my board, both of whom are "undroppable" players - players whose value is so high that for them to be released might upset the balance of the league. Not bad, so far! The third pick, TE Dallas Clark, would normally have been fine, except he would be without his star QB on the Colts, Peyton Manning. As it turned out, Clark would be of little use, having by far the worst year of his career!
The next three spots were all taken by running backs. There were no premium backs left by then, so I wound up with Beanie Wells, Fred Jackson, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis. I figured I would have running back-by-committee, and hoped for the best. The seventh-rounder, WR Braylon Edwards, did not impress me at all. He was moving to a new team and I just had a sense he would not be good for much. (I was right.) Choice # 8, though, turned out to be the steal of the draft, as I got the opportunistic New York Jets defense, which turned out to be the top defense in the league. My kicker came next, Nick Folk, also of the Jets. I would have much preferred the Chargers' Nate Kaeding, but the Jets have a good offense and I figured Folk would have his opportunities. (As it turned out, Kaeding was injured on the season's opening kickoff and was lost for the year, so it was good I didn't get him.)
Numbers 10-13 didn't do much for me: RB Ronnie Brown, WR Davone Bess (I hoped he might be my other starting WR, over Braylon Edwards), RB Jason Snelling, and RB Deji Karim. The last two picks were my backup QB and Team Defense, Jason Campbell and the Tennessee Titans, respectively. I thought both of these selections might pay off for me.
As I mentioned, overall I was happy with my team, but I just had to find a way to get some Chargers onto it! Since I thought my running backs were just okay, and I also needed a good receiver, I proposed trades for Ryan Mathews, Mike Tolbert, Vincent Jackson, and Malcom Floyd. There were absolutely no takers! Like I said, this was a San Diego-based league. My biggest trading play, though, showed my absolute loyalty to the Chargers. (I had previouisly spent 14 years of my life cheering them on from season tickets at San Diego Stadium.) I offered a guy Tom Brady and Dallas Clark for Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates! This was a steal for the guy I proposed it to, or so I thought. No one knew Clark was going to be as bad (and injured) as he was, but Gates was hobbling around on one foot, too. Brady certainly outperformed Rivers during the year, but no one knew it would be by that much, as Rivers had by far his worst statistical year as a starter. If the other guy had made the trade, he might have won our league!
As it was, the season kicked off. It would be a very interesting and very entertaining year...
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
This Time, The BCS Went Too Far
Chris Petersen, the head coach of Boise State University's football team, finally came out and said it. Forget all the niceties and being polite. Forget being politically correct and being careful not to burn one's bridges. After having just explained to his football team how it shouldn't be disappointed to have come within a field goal of another undefeated football season, only to be burned by the Powers that Be and banished to the Las Vegas Bowl (again), Coach Petersen just came right out and said it: Everybody is sick and tired of the BCS.
The BCS - the Bowl Championship Series - keeps telling the fans that it's a fair system that shouldn't have to defend itself against antitrust violations. It must be fair, they tell us, since all 11 conferences in college football are on board. What they don't tell us is that the six power conferences put a virtual gun to the heads of the other five conferences: "Sign this agreement or lose for your league champion any chance of getting to one of our filthy rich bowls!" It must be fair, they tell us, since schools from the WAC and the MWC have gone to a BCS bowl for seven years running, prior to this year. What they don't tell us is that none of those undefeated schools has played in the BCS championship game.
This year, they said, would be different. Boise State began the year high in the polls. If the Broncos had a great year, they could really get there, to the BCS Promised Land. What Boise State got was the shaft, pure and simple. Even by BCS standards, this was a low blow, but the national media does nothing and says nothing, after shamelessly rooting for - and getting - a rematch of LSU and Alabama for the mythical national title.
The BCS is an inequitable and unfair system, and if you look at this year's final BCS standings, there is rampant unfairness and inequity. When an unbeaten team like Houston, which rolled through the regular season and scored points like it was going out of style, loses a game, it gets dropped like a piece of red hot coal. Before losing its conference championship game to Southern Mississippi, the Cougars were poised to possibly finish in the BCS top six and claim a spot in a lucrative bowl. After that loss, Houston was dropped to 19th in the BCS standings. Compare that to Alabama, which lost its regular-season matchup with LSU, dropped only a couple of spots in the BCS rankings, and was quickly elevated back to the very top. Arkansas of the SEC was riding high at third in the BCS, with its only loss to Alabama, before being ambushed by LSU in its regular-season finale. The Razorbacks conveniently dropped only to number six.
This was convenient to the BCS because Boise State, with its only loss by 1 point to a fine TCU squad that also finished in the BCS top 20, couldn't be allowed to make it into the top six, where it would have to be included. Thus, Arkansas and Oregon, each with two losses, both finished ahead of Boise State. Even so, with five BCS bowls needing 10 slots filled, even with the champions of the Big Six conferences and allowing for Alabama, that still meant three slots remained for the Powers that Be to find a place at the table for Boise State.
SEC champ LSU and its chief SEC West division rival, Alabama, were chosen for the BCS Championship Game. The Big 10 and Pac-12 champs, Wisconsin and Oregon, are Rose Bowl bound. The titlists of the ACC and the Big East, Clemson and West Virginia, were placed in the Orange Bowl against each other. Big 12 champion Oklahoma State was matched with Stanford, a worthy at-large selection, in the Fiesta Bowl. That left the Sugar Bowl to select both teams in its matchup from the remaining at-large squads. Arkansas (BCS #6) could not be chosen because there were already two SEC schools in the BCS, which is the limit. This rule also eliminated South Carolina (BCS #9) from consideration.
The right thing for the Sugar Bowl to do would have been to match BCS #7 Boise State with BCS #8 Kansas State. These schools had played by the BCS rules and posted excellent seasons. To finish ranked that high amongst the 120 teams that play major college football is a great achievement. A fair and equitable system would have rewarded these two outstanding football programs.
But, the Bowl Championship Series is neither fair nor equitable. The Sugar Bowl was allowed to look past Boise State, Kansas State, and Baylor (BCS #12), reaching instead for BCS #11 Virginia Tech and BCS #13 Michigan. Virginia Tech had just been beaten by Clemson for the second time this season. Michigan had lost to Michigan State and Iowa during the regular season. These schools were picked because they have fan bases that travel well and spend a lot of money. When you get right down to it, money is the bottom line that this is all about. This bypass of its own system by the BCS, a deal that smacks of back-slapping cronyism, is nothing short of shameless.
The message sent by the BCS to the Boise States of the world is, "Sure, you made BCS bowl appearances in the past. But, you are not one of us, and we can screw you any year we please." You can bet the Boise got the message: Today, it joined the Big East Conference, along with Houston, SMU, San Diego State, and Central Florida. These schools finally figured out that, when it comes to the BCS, you can't beat 'em, so you'd better just join 'em.
The BCS - the Bowl Championship Series - keeps telling the fans that it's a fair system that shouldn't have to defend itself against antitrust violations. It must be fair, they tell us, since all 11 conferences in college football are on board. What they don't tell us is that the six power conferences put a virtual gun to the heads of the other five conferences: "Sign this agreement or lose for your league champion any chance of getting to one of our filthy rich bowls!" It must be fair, they tell us, since schools from the WAC and the MWC have gone to a BCS bowl for seven years running, prior to this year. What they don't tell us is that none of those undefeated schools has played in the BCS championship game.
This year, they said, would be different. Boise State began the year high in the polls. If the Broncos had a great year, they could really get there, to the BCS Promised Land. What Boise State got was the shaft, pure and simple. Even by BCS standards, this was a low blow, but the national media does nothing and says nothing, after shamelessly rooting for - and getting - a rematch of LSU and Alabama for the mythical national title.
The BCS is an inequitable and unfair system, and if you look at this year's final BCS standings, there is rampant unfairness and inequity. When an unbeaten team like Houston, which rolled through the regular season and scored points like it was going out of style, loses a game, it gets dropped like a piece of red hot coal. Before losing its conference championship game to Southern Mississippi, the Cougars were poised to possibly finish in the BCS top six and claim a spot in a lucrative bowl. After that loss, Houston was dropped to 19th in the BCS standings. Compare that to Alabama, which lost its regular-season matchup with LSU, dropped only a couple of spots in the BCS rankings, and was quickly elevated back to the very top. Arkansas of the SEC was riding high at third in the BCS, with its only loss to Alabama, before being ambushed by LSU in its regular-season finale. The Razorbacks conveniently dropped only to number six.
This was convenient to the BCS because Boise State, with its only loss by 1 point to a fine TCU squad that also finished in the BCS top 20, couldn't be allowed to make it into the top six, where it would have to be included. Thus, Arkansas and Oregon, each with two losses, both finished ahead of Boise State. Even so, with five BCS bowls needing 10 slots filled, even with the champions of the Big Six conferences and allowing for Alabama, that still meant three slots remained for the Powers that Be to find a place at the table for Boise State.
SEC champ LSU and its chief SEC West division rival, Alabama, were chosen for the BCS Championship Game. The Big 10 and Pac-12 champs, Wisconsin and Oregon, are Rose Bowl bound. The titlists of the ACC and the Big East, Clemson and West Virginia, were placed in the Orange Bowl against each other. Big 12 champion Oklahoma State was matched with Stanford, a worthy at-large selection, in the Fiesta Bowl. That left the Sugar Bowl to select both teams in its matchup from the remaining at-large squads. Arkansas (BCS #6) could not be chosen because there were already two SEC schools in the BCS, which is the limit. This rule also eliminated South Carolina (BCS #9) from consideration.
The right thing for the Sugar Bowl to do would have been to match BCS #7 Boise State with BCS #8 Kansas State. These schools had played by the BCS rules and posted excellent seasons. To finish ranked that high amongst the 120 teams that play major college football is a great achievement. A fair and equitable system would have rewarded these two outstanding football programs.
But, the Bowl Championship Series is neither fair nor equitable. The Sugar Bowl was allowed to look past Boise State, Kansas State, and Baylor (BCS #12), reaching instead for BCS #11 Virginia Tech and BCS #13 Michigan. Virginia Tech had just been beaten by Clemson for the second time this season. Michigan had lost to Michigan State and Iowa during the regular season. These schools were picked because they have fan bases that travel well and spend a lot of money. When you get right down to it, money is the bottom line that this is all about. This bypass of its own system by the BCS, a deal that smacks of back-slapping cronyism, is nothing short of shameless.
The message sent by the BCS to the Boise States of the world is, "Sure, you made BCS bowl appearances in the past. But, you are not one of us, and we can screw you any year we please." You can bet the Boise got the message: Today, it joined the Big East Conference, along with Houston, SMU, San Diego State, and Central Florida. These schools finally figured out that, when it comes to the BCS, you can't beat 'em, so you'd better just join 'em.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Our Ace In The Hole
The business of running Sportside Books slowed to a crawl during my mother's recent illness. This web log is a tribute to my mom, Theresa A. (Coleman) Armstrong, who passed away on the morning of Novemer 10.
My mother, the former Theresa Ann Conaway (born April 28, 1933 in New York City), was an independent thinker and she was strong, even to the point of being headstrong. This might have explained why she married my father, born Joseph Tracy Coleman, Sr., but known to many by the oh-so-appropriate nickname of Joe Slick. He and my mom grew up in the same building, a tenement apartment house on Elsmere Place in Bronx, New York. My father was five years older than my mom. When he came of age, he joined the U.S. Army, where, because of the times and other factors, he was able to advance only to the rank of sergeant in 20 years. Five years after enlisting, he came around the old neighborhood, finding that Terry Conaway was now 18 years old.
That my father showed up when he did was quite convenient for my mom. She'd been raised in a Catholic household by a strict disciplinarian of a father, Garrett W. Conaway, Sr., and his wife, the former Doris Gillman. Though she loved my grandfather dearly, my mother had come of age in the big city, and she no longer wanted to be held down or back. Young, headstrong, thinking she had all of the answers, she hooked up with my father, which was like jumping from a frying pan right into the fire. They were married in January of 1952.
My oldest brother, Joseph Tracy Coleman, Jr., was born a premie in August of that year, and my other brother, Michael Anthony Coleman, was born in March of 1954. Both were born in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Sometime in the next two years, my father was stationed in Frankfurt, West Germany, to aid in the ongoing reconstruction of the city following World War II. My sister, Mara Theresa Coleman, was born there at the end of 1956. After returning to the States in 1958, my father was sent back to Deutschland for a second tour. I (David Wayne Coleman) was born in Frankfurt in March of 1960.
Mother's marriage to my father was a rocky one, to say the least. I was the end result of one of their final attempts at reconciliation. Sometime soon after returning Stateside in late 1962, they split up for the last time. Their divorce was final in 1966. By then, my father had been stationed in Korea, where he became involved with a woman from a fishing village. My younger sister, Linda Coleman, was born to them in the interim. They later had my younger brother, James (J.J.) Coleman.
To support her four children, my mom worked as a surgical nurse (one of the best in her trade) at various New York City hospitals. Left with the bills from her first marriage, she worked two jobs until she had paid off her creditors, then she went right on working and saving her money. These years, 1966 to 1970, were rough ones if you were living in the ghetto in The Bronx. Drugs were everywhere, and my older brothers fell under their influence. Mother finally had enough money to move us away from New York during the summer of 1970. After four days of riding west on the Pennsylvania, Union Pacific, and Southern Pacific railroads, we arrived in California.
That first year in California, we lived in Oakland. Mother then moved us south to San Diego, where she would spend most of the next 33 years. In 1974, she met and married a U.S. Marine named Melvin D. Armstrong. Mother moved with him, and her youngest two children, to Northern Virginia, where they spend the next couple of years. Soon after Mel was stationed back in Southern California, he and my mom split up.
Back in San Diego and back on her own, Mother finished raising Mara and me. She never really dated again. Kids came and went, but her youngest son stayed an uncommonly long time. In fact, we bought a condo together in 1988. I finally moved out at age 37, after marrying my first wife in September of 1997. It was not a long marriage, at all. By the end of March, 1998, I'd moved back in with my mom, along with her first grandchild, Reina Coleman. I finally moved out for good after remarrying in 2002. Mother's second grandchild, David Coleman, Jr., was born in July of 2003. Her third and final grandchild, Amber Coleman, came along in March of 2006.
During 2005, Mother sold the condo during the height of the California real estate boom. We made a tidy profit, enough to purchase homes in Arizona. Mother moved to Mohave Valley; south of Bullhead City and across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada. A haven for retirees, Mohave Valley was not a happening enough place for my mom, so she sold the house and bought a newer one in North Las Vegas. She lived there until almost the end. During her final six months, she had rented a home in Las Vegas, proper. Although 78 years old, Mother was still sharp as a tack, but she'd been a lifelong smoker. A heart ailment led to her death.
Through all she went through, from failed marriages to sky-high debt, whether helping her kids get off drugs, or picking one of us up whenever we'd fall, Mother always let us know how much she loved us, and that she was on our side. These were not mere words. Mother supported us, assisted us, encouraged us, forgave us, and sustained us for nearly sixty years, since she first became a mother. She was right there, in our respective corners, backing us up constantly and bailing us out, including financially, whenever she had to.
My mother gave her life to her children, and later to her grandchildren. All of the things a mother should be, she was. All the things a mother should do, she did. We could always depend on her, and we did. Since she has left us, however, I have felt her spirit more strongly than ever. Considering how close Mother and I always were, that is truly saying something. I had the greatest mother I could imagine anyone having, and I still have her. She is still inside of me, giving me strength, fortifying my resolve, and reassuring and comforting me. And, I know she is doing the same things for my siblings and for my children.
For the seven of us, Mother was a true and lifelong blessing, and the best friend we could hope to have. Her love will live on in all of us. Her struggle to improve her life, and the strength she showed in overcoming whatever difficulties, will always inspire us. Her devotion to us will warm our hearts for as long as we live. And, her legacy will live on through my children and through the further generations of her progeny. My siblings and I may have gotten the Joker in the deck, so to speak, when it came to our father, but in our mother, Theresa A. Armstrong, we were dealt an Ace of Spades. Her love trumped all of our troubles. She was our Ace in the Hole!
My mother, the former Theresa Ann Conaway (born April 28, 1933 in New York City), was an independent thinker and she was strong, even to the point of being headstrong. This might have explained why she married my father, born Joseph Tracy Coleman, Sr., but known to many by the oh-so-appropriate nickname of Joe Slick. He and my mom grew up in the same building, a tenement apartment house on Elsmere Place in Bronx, New York. My father was five years older than my mom. When he came of age, he joined the U.S. Army, where, because of the times and other factors, he was able to advance only to the rank of sergeant in 20 years. Five years after enlisting, he came around the old neighborhood, finding that Terry Conaway was now 18 years old.
That my father showed up when he did was quite convenient for my mom. She'd been raised in a Catholic household by a strict disciplinarian of a father, Garrett W. Conaway, Sr., and his wife, the former Doris Gillman. Though she loved my grandfather dearly, my mother had come of age in the big city, and she no longer wanted to be held down or back. Young, headstrong, thinking she had all of the answers, she hooked up with my father, which was like jumping from a frying pan right into the fire. They were married in January of 1952.
My oldest brother, Joseph Tracy Coleman, Jr., was born a premie in August of that year, and my other brother, Michael Anthony Coleman, was born in March of 1954. Both were born in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Sometime in the next two years, my father was stationed in Frankfurt, West Germany, to aid in the ongoing reconstruction of the city following World War II. My sister, Mara Theresa Coleman, was born there at the end of 1956. After returning to the States in 1958, my father was sent back to Deutschland for a second tour. I (David Wayne Coleman) was born in Frankfurt in March of 1960.
Mother's marriage to my father was a rocky one, to say the least. I was the end result of one of their final attempts at reconciliation. Sometime soon after returning Stateside in late 1962, they split up for the last time. Their divorce was final in 1966. By then, my father had been stationed in Korea, where he became involved with a woman from a fishing village. My younger sister, Linda Coleman, was born to them in the interim. They later had my younger brother, James (J.J.) Coleman.
To support her four children, my mom worked as a surgical nurse (one of the best in her trade) at various New York City hospitals. Left with the bills from her first marriage, she worked two jobs until she had paid off her creditors, then she went right on working and saving her money. These years, 1966 to 1970, were rough ones if you were living in the ghetto in The Bronx. Drugs were everywhere, and my older brothers fell under their influence. Mother finally had enough money to move us away from New York during the summer of 1970. After four days of riding west on the Pennsylvania, Union Pacific, and Southern Pacific railroads, we arrived in California.
That first year in California, we lived in Oakland. Mother then moved us south to San Diego, where she would spend most of the next 33 years. In 1974, she met and married a U.S. Marine named Melvin D. Armstrong. Mother moved with him, and her youngest two children, to Northern Virginia, where they spend the next couple of years. Soon after Mel was stationed back in Southern California, he and my mom split up.
Back in San Diego and back on her own, Mother finished raising Mara and me. She never really dated again. Kids came and went, but her youngest son stayed an uncommonly long time. In fact, we bought a condo together in 1988. I finally moved out at age 37, after marrying my first wife in September of 1997. It was not a long marriage, at all. By the end of March, 1998, I'd moved back in with my mom, along with her first grandchild, Reina Coleman. I finally moved out for good after remarrying in 2002. Mother's second grandchild, David Coleman, Jr., was born in July of 2003. Her third and final grandchild, Amber Coleman, came along in March of 2006.
During 2005, Mother sold the condo during the height of the California real estate boom. We made a tidy profit, enough to purchase homes in Arizona. Mother moved to Mohave Valley; south of Bullhead City and across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada. A haven for retirees, Mohave Valley was not a happening enough place for my mom, so she sold the house and bought a newer one in North Las Vegas. She lived there until almost the end. During her final six months, she had rented a home in Las Vegas, proper. Although 78 years old, Mother was still sharp as a tack, but she'd been a lifelong smoker. A heart ailment led to her death.
Through all she went through, from failed marriages to sky-high debt, whether helping her kids get off drugs, or picking one of us up whenever we'd fall, Mother always let us know how much she loved us, and that she was on our side. These were not mere words. Mother supported us, assisted us, encouraged us, forgave us, and sustained us for nearly sixty years, since she first became a mother. She was right there, in our respective corners, backing us up constantly and bailing us out, including financially, whenever she had to.
My mother gave her life to her children, and later to her grandchildren. All of the things a mother should be, she was. All the things a mother should do, she did. We could always depend on her, and we did. Since she has left us, however, I have felt her spirit more strongly than ever. Considering how close Mother and I always were, that is truly saying something. I had the greatest mother I could imagine anyone having, and I still have her. She is still inside of me, giving me strength, fortifying my resolve, and reassuring and comforting me. And, I know she is doing the same things for my siblings and for my children.
For the seven of us, Mother was a true and lifelong blessing, and the best friend we could hope to have. Her love will live on in all of us. Her struggle to improve her life, and the strength she showed in overcoming whatever difficulties, will always inspire us. Her devotion to us will warm our hearts for as long as we live. And, her legacy will live on through my children and through the further generations of her progeny. My siblings and I may have gotten the Joker in the deck, so to speak, when it came to our father, but in our mother, Theresa A. Armstrong, we were dealt an Ace of Spades. Her love trumped all of our troubles. She was our Ace in the Hole!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Conference Musical Chairs Redux
Another round of Musical Chairs has begun in NCAA college football's conference playground. I recently tweeted about the fact that the Western Athletic Conference, with 16 teams for a few seasons, was the first Super Conference. Things definitely seem to be moving in that direction. For right now, the race seems to be on to see which of the Football Bowl Subdivision conferences can successfully make it to 12 or 14 teams. The Big Boys at major college football's training table (that's the SEC, the ACC, and the PAC-12) are taking theirs, leaving the other conferences to fight amongst each other for the scraps and try to survive. Here's what's happened, lately:
The Southeastern Conference has taken Texas A&M from the Big 12. The Aggie community had tired of the "One Big Cowboy, nine Little Indians" mentality of the Big 12, where everything favors the University of Texas. So, they took their football and left. The Aggies are a good fit in the SEC, but the moves leaves the SEC with an unwieldy 13 members. Seeing this situation as its opportunity, Missouri has given its chancellor the authority to find a new home for its athletics. The Tigers are expected to apply for SEC membership within days.
The Big 12 had hoped to solve its membership problem by hijacking Texas Christian University. TCU had already made the move from the Mountain West Conference to the Big East, with play to start next season. But, the Big 12, down to nine schools after the departure of Texas A&M, snapped its fingers and the Horned Frogs jumped at the chance to rejoin Texas, Texas Tech, and Baylor for conference play. If Missouri leaves for the SEC, the Big 12 will once again be down to nine teams. It might need to go back to 12 teams, just for the sake of survival. The question is whether the top schools the Big 12 might target will still be available.
The Big 12 could get back to actually having 12 members if it added Houston, SMU, and BYU or Boise State, but those same schools are also on the radar of the Big East Conference. The Big East was recently raided (again) for two of its remaining crown jewels, with Pittsburgh and Syracuse bolting for the Atlantic Coast Conference, bringing ACC membership up to 14 teams. That left the Big East with only six football-playing members and there is plenty of gnashing of teeth going on. It's no secret that Connecticut also wants to join the ACC and is dismayed at being left behind. In fact, its women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, came right out and blamed Notre Dame for the Big East's woes, stating that if the Fighting Irish had joined the conference for football, Boston College, Virginia Tech, and the University of Miami would never have left!
The Big East is expected to soon add Central Florida and has an application in its hip pocket from East Carolina. After that, it's fair game, with Houston, SMU, Boise State, Army, Navy, and Air Force all being considered for membership. The Big East would also accept Notre Dame for football in a heartbeat. Notre Dame is a Big East member in all other sports.
Many of the schools being talked about as candidates to change conference, now reside in either the Mountain West or in Conference USA. After losing Utah to the PAC-12 and BYU to independence this year, the Mountain West had to add Boise State just to get back to eight members. The departure of Boise State would be another major blow to the conference's hopes of earning an automatic bid for its champion in football's Bowl Championship Series. Comparing its plight with that of C-USA, which has already lost Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida to the Big East (and TCU to the MWC), the Mountain West went into discussions with C-USA about a championship game between the two conferences. What they agreed on is a football-only alliance, including inter-league play.
While it is hoped that the MWC/C-USA champion might be extended a BCS bowl berth, the real reason for this mini-merger is survival. If Boise State and Air Force join the Big East, the MWC would be down to six schools. If Houston, SMU, Central Florida, and East Carolina also went to the Big East, that would restore the BEC to 12 members, but C-USA would only have eight schools left. If that were to take place, Conference USA and the Mountain West might just as well go ahead with a full merger and stand as one 14-team conference. Even if this new league lost a couple of other schools, there would still be 12 remaining members, which would be enough to stage a championship game in football.
This game of conference musical chairs might not stop until the Big Six conferences all have 16 members. That would make a total of 96 schools being big winners, with a chance to play for a national championship in football. Everybody else outside of that group, would be out of luck.
The Southeastern Conference has taken Texas A&M from the Big 12. The Aggie community had tired of the "One Big Cowboy, nine Little Indians" mentality of the Big 12, where everything favors the University of Texas. So, they took their football and left. The Aggies are a good fit in the SEC, but the moves leaves the SEC with an unwieldy 13 members. Seeing this situation as its opportunity, Missouri has given its chancellor the authority to find a new home for its athletics. The Tigers are expected to apply for SEC membership within days.
The Big 12 had hoped to solve its membership problem by hijacking Texas Christian University. TCU had already made the move from the Mountain West Conference to the Big East, with play to start next season. But, the Big 12, down to nine schools after the departure of Texas A&M, snapped its fingers and the Horned Frogs jumped at the chance to rejoin Texas, Texas Tech, and Baylor for conference play. If Missouri leaves for the SEC, the Big 12 will once again be down to nine teams. It might need to go back to 12 teams, just for the sake of survival. The question is whether the top schools the Big 12 might target will still be available.
The Big 12 could get back to actually having 12 members if it added Houston, SMU, and BYU or Boise State, but those same schools are also on the radar of the Big East Conference. The Big East was recently raided (again) for two of its remaining crown jewels, with Pittsburgh and Syracuse bolting for the Atlantic Coast Conference, bringing ACC membership up to 14 teams. That left the Big East with only six football-playing members and there is plenty of gnashing of teeth going on. It's no secret that Connecticut also wants to join the ACC and is dismayed at being left behind. In fact, its women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, came right out and blamed Notre Dame for the Big East's woes, stating that if the Fighting Irish had joined the conference for football, Boston College, Virginia Tech, and the University of Miami would never have left!
The Big East is expected to soon add Central Florida and has an application in its hip pocket from East Carolina. After that, it's fair game, with Houston, SMU, Boise State, Army, Navy, and Air Force all being considered for membership. The Big East would also accept Notre Dame for football in a heartbeat. Notre Dame is a Big East member in all other sports.
Many of the schools being talked about as candidates to change conference, now reside in either the Mountain West or in Conference USA. After losing Utah to the PAC-12 and BYU to independence this year, the Mountain West had to add Boise State just to get back to eight members. The departure of Boise State would be another major blow to the conference's hopes of earning an automatic bid for its champion in football's Bowl Championship Series. Comparing its plight with that of C-USA, which has already lost Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida to the Big East (and TCU to the MWC), the Mountain West went into discussions with C-USA about a championship game between the two conferences. What they agreed on is a football-only alliance, including inter-league play.
While it is hoped that the MWC/C-USA champion might be extended a BCS bowl berth, the real reason for this mini-merger is survival. If Boise State and Air Force join the Big East, the MWC would be down to six schools. If Houston, SMU, Central Florida, and East Carolina also went to the Big East, that would restore the BEC to 12 members, but C-USA would only have eight schools left. If that were to take place, Conference USA and the Mountain West might just as well go ahead with a full merger and stand as one 14-team conference. Even if this new league lost a couple of other schools, there would still be 12 remaining members, which would be enough to stage a championship game in football.
This game of conference musical chairs might not stop until the Big Six conferences all have 16 members. That would make a total of 96 schools being big winners, with a chance to play for a national championship in football. Everybody else outside of that group, would be out of luck.
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