GRIDIRON FANTASY LEAGUE HISTORY

 

Our Fantasy Football League began in 1995 by Thomas V. Murphy and Jamie Smith with the idea of expanding our love for football to more then just watching the game.  While most leagues competed with money as the key objective, our league was built with the belief that bragging rights and enjoying the whole experience were more rewarding.  The league started with six teams:  Predators (Thomas V. Murphy), Raptors (Jamie Smith), Outlaws (Scott Murphy), Marauders (Gary Rutter), Mustangs (Rich Campbell) and Convicts (Steven Hughes). 

 

The league attempted an expansion in 1996 by admitting the Fanatics (Seth Sheckard) and the Avalanche (owner abandoned league therefore team was carried by the league). 

 

After struggling through the '96 season with losing two team owners, the league restructured in 1997 by transferring the Mustangs to Da Birds (Greg McCauley) and the Avalanche (Scott Good), making the league eight teams strong.  We also lost one of our founding members as Jamie Smith moved from the area allowing the Raptors to be taken over by George Cox. 

 

The league flourished even more going into the 1998 season expanding by four teams to make a total of twelve teams and doing a complete redraft since the '95 inaugural season.  Expansion teams were Doom (John Beamsderfer), Futbolers (Tim Bitterman), Knuckleheads (Mike Hickey), and Warriors (Curtis Wagner).  In addition to the expansion, the Fanatics changed names to the Eliminators, Avalanche changes to Good-E-Nufs, and the Convicts were transferred to Halas's Boys (Chad Rettew).

 

The 1999 season say only minor changes with transfers for Halas's Boys to Lowriders (Doug Burkey) and Doom (Greg Huffman).  This was also the first year we introduced a championship pool with the bowl contenders winning cash.  This was a contradiction to our original intentions, but adding a small monetary pool made things more competitive.

 

With our 6th season, we have changed the name to the GridIron Fantasy League and made a few rule changes to make the game more entertaining. The only change to any teams is a new owner Venom (Pete Ringer) formerly known as Futbolers.

 

During our 7th season, we welcomed two new owners.  Good-E-Nufs (John Potts) and Hitmen (Brian Hoover) formerly known as Da Birds.

 

In 2003, our 9th season, we once again had an ownership change with the LeatherHogs (George Cox) being taken over by Mike Peters.  Good-E-Nufs (John Potts) formerly changed the team name to Buzzards.

 

In 2004 and we are beginning our 10th season with a strong league and a solid core of owners.  One more team had changed hands with Lowriders (Doug Burkey) becoming the Dutch Boys (Jamie Fizer).

 

Starting in 2006, Eliminators changed hands with Tom Megashko becoming the new owner.

 

In 2005, we did not have any teams change hands.

 

Year 2007 had only one change, with LeatherHogs being taken over by Jeremy Price.


Our league plays a twelve game schedule with the top four teams in each conference playing two rounds of playoffs leading into the GridIron Bowl

Past GridIron Bowl winners are:

GridIron Bowl I

Predators (R) def Mustangs

GridIron Bowl II

Marauders def Predators

GridIron Bowl III                

Marauders def Da Birds

GridIron Bowl IV                

Knuckleheads (R) def Marauders

GridIron Bowl V

Lowriders (R) def Da Birds

GridIron Bowl VI                

Da Birds def Doom

GridIron Bowl VII              

Predators def Lowriders

GridIron Bowl VIII             

Predators def Doom

GridIron Bowl IX                

Predators def Doom

GridIron Bowl X 

Hitmen def Outlaws

GridIron Bowl XI

Predators def Doom

GridIron Bowl XII              

Predators def Knuckleheads

GridIron Bowl XIII

Outlaws def Venom

(R) - Indicates team won GridIron Bowl in rookie season.