What I learned From A 40-Year-Old Fantasy League

When my father became ill in 2017, I took over his fantasy keeper league team, planning to hand it back over to him when he got better. He had been in this league since the 1980s, and this collection of teams had been together longer than I have been alive.

My dad and I were very different people. The only commonality we had was our love of sports. Sports kept us engaged in something greater than ourselves. Despite our differences, fantasy sports kept us connected. 

When he got sick, we thought it would be a temporary situation. He was in a hospital bed for over a year and a half. I took over the team with the goal of him taking over the team again once he got healthier. I had done fantasy football before… but a league…this old? That was new.

Some of the rules are still a relic of a time before sports fans had instant access to stats. For example, you only get points for certain yard thresholds; 50 yards gets you 3 points, but having 49 would get you 0 Points. Each pass attempt loses you a point, but each pass completion is worth two points. It's an everlasting fundamental difference between so many "modern" leagues and this league. Accuracy becomes more important than yards. An accurate quarterback is the most valuable player you have.

The new ruleset is the least important lesson I learned from this league, which has existed since before the Czech Republic was a country. I learned the most valuable lessons once I took over my dad's team after he passed away in 2022.

 I learned what the real power behind sports and fantasy sports was.

This league started at a time when you wouldn't know if you won your fantasy league until a week later when the commissioner mailed everyone the results. Not everyone had email. Indeed, most people didn't have computers. You'd have to call your commissioner to make acquisitions for players. Make trades. Everything. It was an introverted fantasy sports player's worst nightmare.

I don't know a single person in the league. They were all my dad’s friends that I didn't know. Many of his friends have passed their teams down to friends or their sons. And we continue the league. We inherited a ritual around a sport that we all love—a cycle now as predictable as the seasons.

I learned it's possible to inherit non-tangible possessions. 

This keeper league allowed you to keep two players per year. And there was a limit of 3 years on a player so that you would only have someone for a short time. I kept two players from the previous year when I took over my dad's team. I had nothing to do with these players being on the roster. He had drafted them. 

But…

 I had inherited this from my dad. 

He is not just a player, but a player he picked because my dad had some hunch that this player would be good. Someone he believed in. I now believed in him, too. Granted, its easy to believe in that player when it’s sophomore year Justin Herbert.

Unfortunately, my dad was not very successful at fantasy football. He hadn't won since the early 1990s. But this is a team he thought about every year for 40 years, and I, too, would continue this tradition.

He loved this team. It was one of the things that gave him joy in life, especially in his later years when he couldn't do much else but watch sports and play fantasy.

This past year: That team came in first place. It scored the most fantasy points of any season on record. Dad, you may not have been here for it, but the team you built did it. It freaking did it.

We did it, Dad. We won!

I learned that not all heirlooms are physical. Some are promises that we can keep.