A family tradition begins its 24th year

The Tika Namus and Big Boys
have won 7 titles each
In the fall of 1984, before there was the internet, online sports leagues, and when ESPN was only five years old, I joined my first fantasy football league among the newsroom brotherhood of The Statesboro Herald, in Statesboro, GA.

Labor Day weekend, we gathered at Joel Ganger's house, paid a $20 entry fee and then in a snake draft, we chose teams among NFL players. Each team had a quarterback, a running back, two wide receivers, and a kicker. A schedule was built so that we each played one another several times. At the end of the weekend's games, you got the points that your offensive players scored and the tally was your team's score. You could change any player on your roster week-to-week, but it cost you $2 per move. Active players carried over year-to-year - just like real life. We followed the players through the newspaper box scores. The sports editor - a guy named Steve (I think) - was the commissioner and his team also won that year. He had Marino at quarterback. At the end of the season, the winner got 75 percent of the pot; second-place got 25 percent. I got zero, but had a great time with those guys for both years I lived in Statesboro and worked at The Herald. Joel Ganger was in my wedding.

In 1995, Vicki and I had been in Lexington, SC for four years. We had three little boys, Andrew (7), William (4), and Richard (1). Andrew was starting to watch football with me, and William was a distraction throwing a Nerf football up in the air and then diving over furniture to catch it.

That's when I decided that the next year, 1996, I would resurrect the old football league from The Herald and create our own family football league (with no entry fee). On Labor Day 1996, I sat down with Andrew (The Mean Machine) and William (The Tika Namus - yep, no one really knows why), and between the three of us we picked teams. I helped them pick the best teams possible, knowing I might well lose to a 5-year-old. To have four teams, we even picked a team out of the hat for Richard (The Big Boys), who was then 2. (Don't feel sorry for Richard - over time he maneuvered that team to win 30 percent of all the titles).

My Tailbeaters won that first year, but barely. My record was 9-6. We celebrated with a family dinner the weekend of the Super Bowl, and I even went to see Mike Parker at Parker's Gifts for a small football trophy. A tradition was born. One year, William won the title and upon presentation of his trophy at the restaurant, the wait staff cheered for him, thinking he had actually been on a championship football team. In fact, he was the team president. :)

Tonight, Labor Day 2019, using video conferencing to connect our family over four states, we will launch the 24th season of what is now The Vaughan Family Football League. Several years ago, we abandoned the annual trophy and went to a larger plaque that is prominent in the main thoroughfare of our home.

When Matthew was born in 1997, we pulled a team for him (Pterodactyls - now Thunder Ducks) out of the hat as we had done for Richard. We also added Vicki's team (Mama's Boys) to keep things even at six teams. When Andrew married Elizabeth in 2015, she got a franchise in 2016 (E's Team). This year, 2019, we expand again because since last Labor Day two more wives have joined our family: Audrey (The Chuckknuckles) and Anna (Las mamacitas).

We still use that old format from The Statesboro Herald days except we've added a Tight End to each roster. We have replaced the annual dinner with a cash prize - what I would probably pay if I took us all out for dinner anyway.

I read somewhere a long time ago, when I first became a dad, that the way to keep your family close is to make your family a fun place to be. Traditions - The Best Bud Handshake, Mexican Dip, Late Night Brownies, a movie on Christmas Eve, Family Meetings, Pirates at Halloween, and the VFFL all do just that. The VFFL, as much as anything, still ensures that for several months, no matter where we are or how busy we are, we are all connected around something that's fun to talk about throughout the year.

Comments

  1. JeffersonLadySeptember 2, 2019 at 7:18 PM

    Thanks for this insightful piece. I had never thought about it, but, yes, our family traditions are what help bind us together. Thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete

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