A football weekend !!!

This weekend was, in my mind, the real start of the football season.

Saturday was the "official" opening day ceremony for the county youth football league.
It started at 9:00 am and the weather was perfect.

The entire event is held at a local high school football field and all the kids got to scrimmage each other on the big kids field.

On the way over to the school; this is how perfect the weather was; we got a chance to see about 4 or 5 hot air balloons taking off, a couple ultralights flying around and even a couple barnstormers from the nearby "flying circus" air show already up in the air.

The whole opening day event also had a bunch of concession stands, T-shirt booth (where one could get your teams logo and or kids name put on it), and raffles for 50/50 prizes. Of course all this helped benefit the league and added to the fun of the event.

All the parents got to sit up in the stands and they had the stadium PA system and score boards up and running too.

All in all a great start to the day!!!

But wait, I'm not done...

Saturday evening was my Fantasy League Live Draft and Party!!!

We have a league comprised of 12 teams, each owned by either co-workers or former co-workers from the company I work for. And the league just happens to be spread out across the county with about half here in the DC metro area and the other half out in California. So we have an East and West division in the Borderless Fantasy Football League.

Most of the East Coast division gathered at one persons house, (the guy with the Kegerator) with each person bringing something to munch on. My perfect wife ordered some delicious BBQ ribs online from Tony Roma's. They are sooo good, I almost did not want to share! but I brought them along anyway.

So we all arrived at Steve's house about 30-40 minutes before the start of the draft, hooked up our laptops, turned on the TV for pre-season action, dished out the food and drink, and dialed up the conference call!

All in time to watch the ESPN count down clock for the start of the draft!

We had the draft order randomized and the ESPN super computer automatically determined the order about 1 hour before the start of the draft. This year we had a couple last minute ( 3 days prior ) requested changes which everyone thought were good ideas, but just not feasible to do correctly in time for the draft. These were to make the league a Keeper League and to have draft order based on last years standings. So I set it up for a keeper league ( 1 franchise player) for next year and we will implement the standings based order next year as well.

So, how did I do? Well I ended up drawing 6th out of 12. Now this is not so bad since I always ended up picking near the middle of each round. But I can say that we all, including me, had more than our fair share of "groans" and "jeers" as our next top choice player was picked by somebody else! I got very few of my "top choices" but we will see how this season goes.

Here is my team as it stands now, after the draft.

SANTAS LITTLE HELPERS (0-0)

QB Jay Cutler, Chi
RB DeAngelo Williams, Car
RB Darren McFadden, Oak
RB/WR Chris Wells, Ari
WR Reggie Wayne, Ind
WR DeSean Jackson, Phi
WR/TE Devin Hester, Chi
TE Chris Cooley, Was
OP Shaun Hill, SF
DL Jay Alford, NYG
DB Gibril Wilson, Mia
DP Jon Beason, Car
D/ST Redskins D/ST, Was
K Robbie Gould, Chi
Bench Jason Campbell, Was QB
Bench Julius Jones, Sea RB
Bench Antwaan Randle El, Was WR
Bench Justin Gage, Ten WR
Bench Correll Buckhalter, Den RB
Bench 49ers D/ST, SF D/ST
Bench Hakeem Nicks, NYG WR