We played fantasy football before it was cool – and we’re still going 32 years later

It’s basically a scientific fact that half of all people who play fantasy football today wore diapers — or they weren’t even born — when our league started 32 years ago.

We began as eight friends, living in and around Washington, D.C. We named our league the Washington Area Fantasy Football League (WAFFL), and over time we expanded to 12 friends. We were about 3 years out of college. Seven of our original eight graduated from Syracuse University, which, coincidentally, has a historic connection to fantasy football. Jim Brown, who played football for Syracuse and later for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, is considered the greatest fantasy football athlete of his era , and possibly of all-time (more on Jim Brown later).

When our league began, fantasy football was just one of many reasons for our group to get together. We were in our 20’s. We played sports as a team, we went drinking together, some of us even share an apartment. We were nearly inseparable.

During the early years, everyone gathered in person for our annual league draft, with magazines and piles of notes. If a potential draft pick was nursing an injury, some of us were undoubtedly in the dark about it, which created a disadvantage. That’s because there was always one guy in the room who knew the health status of every player, right up to the minute.

We had no Internet back then. We had no NFL RedZone. We had no Taylor Swift-inspired team names.

After 32 years, we are no longer cool (or so our kids tell us), but Fantasy Football sure is. According to recent industry data , the number of people who play fantasy sports in North America has increased by about 2,000 percent since our league began in 1993: from 3 million to 62.5 million participants. Not to mention, roughly half of those who play fantasy sports today were two years old (or younger!) during our league’s inaugural season in ‘93.

Today’s fantasy leagues revel in the luxuries of the Internet. They take for granted the conveniences of real-time statistics and live scoring. When we wanted intel on a player, or we wanted to calculate a player’s points scored, we walked — uphill both ways — to the convenience store. There, we plunked down some change, bought a newspaper, and flipped over to the sports section. On football Sundays, we endured whatever game was available on local cable, or bars that had the NFL package and were able to run multiple games at once got our business on Sunday.

In today’s era, women comprise 35% of fantasy players . That’s undoubtedly a higher percentage than in 1993. WAFFL was an all-male league for about two-thirds of its existence. For the past 11 years we’ve had one female owner, Sarah Moran. She fits right in. Moran and her husband Brian share team responsibilities. They get along quite well in fantasy football, but not as much when it comes to real football. Sarah’s an Eagles fan and Brian loves the Patriots, which – to put it mildly – can create tension in their household. My wife, Jen, plays fantasy football. Jen’s team name is “Big Reputation” which encompasses both a Taylor Swift album and a Taylor Swift song lyric (“Ooh, you and me, we got big reputations”). If you’d like your own Swiftie-themed team name, Google has you covered. So does TikTok , if you’re one who Tiks. Or Toks. Of course, you couldn’t Google or TikTok anything in ’93. You could, however, pop a CD into your Discman and crank up “I will always love you ” by Whitney Houston, the year’s #1 song. Meanwhile, in theaters, Jurassic Park (yes, the first one) was the #1 movie. Seven Jurassic Park sequels have come and gone during our league’s existence. Same goes for all 236 episodes of the Friends TV show plus the Dot-Com bubble and the Y2K bug. There was only one thing that nearly derailed us: a girl. Let’s just say, some years ago when we were all single, there were three of us (comprising a full one-quarter of our league) who aspired to be her #1 pick. Hurt feelings ensued. But that’s water under the bridge now. Or, more accurately, it makes for spicy trash talk now.

And slandering one’s league-mates with trash talk is integral to WAFFL culture. J.J. Berger, 57, is one of the original eight WAFFL founders. He played for nearly 20 years before bowing out at the top of his game, with four WAFFL championship victories. Despite his trophy haul, winning isn’t J.J.’s favorite WAFFL memory:

“I liked the trash talking and the camaraderie,” he says. “And the challenge.”

Still, how did he win all those trophies?

“Luck. You can have the best team on paper and still get hammered. Just like real football. I’d like to claim a stellar strategy, but I just didn’t have one.”

WAFFL league photo; photo courtesy of WAFFL league — The WAFFL League members jokingly voting out a league member for missing the wedding celebration of the commissioner Don “Lou” Ventre (center of photo with goatee); photo courtesy of WAFFL league

As we got older, the bonds that connected us during college and early adulthood gave way to other priorities, like relationships, families, and jobs in other cities. Fantasy football became the thing that connected us all. No matter how busy we are, or how far apart, each of us reserve two hours every year – always on the same day in in early September – for our fantasy draft. (Our draft is virtual these days, instead of in-person like old times. Thanks, Internet). Weddings doubled as league reunions. Divorces were an opportunity for a fresh start, to rededicate oneself to winning the coveted WAFFL trophy. We even started a separate “WAFFL Junior” league, so kids and parents could play together (with age-appropriate trash talk). For those keeping score at home: Since our first year of WAFFL we’ve experienced 13 weddings, 3 divorces, and 17 kids (no grandkids yet, but they’re surely on the way). We weathered a few significant health scares, but none were fatal (knock wood). One of our league members, who has not won a championship yet, worries that he’ll die before he ever wins a WAFFL trophy. If that unfortunate event ever happens, he has extracted a promise: that the remaining league members won’t inscribe “Fantasy Loser” on his tombstone.

I envision our fantasy league enduring for another couple decades, hopefully longer. After all, some of the most interesting personalities in the fantasy industry right now are – like us — on the plus-side of 50. The list includes Stephania Bell , 59, who earned a degree in French Literature from Princeton. More important for fantasy purposes, she’s also a physical therapist who explains the impact of players’ injuries, in plain English not medical-speak, on ESPN outlets. Matthew Berry, 55, is a go-to source for anyone seeking an edge in their fantasy football league. He’s the author of a best –selling book about fantasy sports , he hosts a popular fantasy podcast and, he’s a Swiftie. If I’m lucky, I’ll enjoy fantasy football as long as Andy Mousalimas played the game. Mousalimas, who died in 2020 at 95, is revered for bringing fantasy football to a wide audience, by introducing the game to patrons of his sports bar.

According to ESPN and fantasy football lore, Mousalimas also had the #1 pick in the first-ever fantasy football draft. It did not go well for him.

“We had a choice between George Blanda and Jim Brown, and we foolishly picked George Blanda,” Mousalimas told ESPN. The result? “We ended up in last place.”

By passing on Jim Brown in that first-ever draft and finishing dead last, Mousalimas also helped popularize an important fantasy football tradition – the loser’s punishment. Back then they called it the Dunce Trophy. Mousalimas played fantasy football for 50 years. If our league endures for 50 years, credit will go to one man: our Commissioner, Donald “Lou” Ventre, 57, of Washington, DC. Ventre has been running our league operations for two-plus decades. He organizes the draft, handles league finances, and he arbitrates disputes. In the early days he maintained all our records manually, in a thick black binder we called “The Bible.” In 2001, he migrated our league to the Internet. Could Ventre see himself leading us for 18 more years, right up to our 50^th anniversary in 2043?

“We will absolutely do this forever,” Ventre says. “It’s my hope and my desire that we never stop.”