What follows is the history of the United Fantasy Football Association, which will be referred to from here on out as the U.F.F.A. Due to the fact that the record keeping is non-existent before 2001 the timeline is sketchy at best. There will be paragraphs added year by year to make this a COMPLETE history. This is the first in a series that will include division histories, team histories that will all lead up to the draft.
An idea is formed
The story begins in the early to mid-‘90s when Kris Mcewen hatched the league plan. It is believed that this plan was hatched in the fall of 1992. Kris formed a league of eight owners for a head-to-head fantasy football league that consisted of students at Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, Illinois. After about five or six weeks, the league folded due to the lack of interest among other things.
The early years
In the fall of 1993, McEwen and current U.F.F.A. Commissioner Marco Santana, who were two of the owners of the failed 1992 league, worked together to put a more desirable league together. Santana’s contributions were mostly pulled out of Cliff Charpentier’s 1993 Guide To Fantasy Football. This was a paperback book that is widely considered the grandfather of today’s fantasy football magazines. When the school year began, McEwen and Santana put together eight owners that included Mark Christopherson, McEwen, Santana, Greg Bernard, Jose Guzman, and others that escape the author’s memory. The league was named the Professional Fantasy Football League. That season did go as planned and the league that would become the U.F.F.A. was born. The team names of franchises that are not around right now included Magoo’s Marauders, which was McEwen’s team, the Giants, a team named after the owner’s favorite team, and more.
Service time, new name
With two seasons under its belt with rotating owners, the league ran into its first major obstacle. McEwen had signed up for the U.S. Air Force and was scheduled to leave in the fall of 1995. Santana agreed to take control of the league on his own and named the championship game the Magoo Bowl in honor of his best friend. The recruitment of new owners included Santana’s brother, Joe, Brian Rupnick, who is still a part of the league, Charlie South, Jeff Christiansen, Joe Morrison, Jared Trebes, and others. Team names included Lick It (South), the Furnuggians (Christiansen), the Jaguars (Trebes), the Cigars (Morrison), and the Reserves (Joe Santana). The P.F.F.L. was also renamed the U.F.F.A. to signal a new league.
No internet?
Owners were updated as to the league's standings, game recaps, next week's preview and all other features that you know and love through a weekly printed out update. Santana would go to the local library and type it all from scratch every week. That is, every week when the updates were made. He would then print them out at the library and drive to everybody's houses to distribute them. Yes the Internet has been good to him.
Barely surviving
The next few years were filled with last second replacements, owners not speaking over the off season--which resulted in loss of interest--and other things that had the league’s existence hanging in the balance. Somehow or another, however, the league stayed above water. Other owners who were in the league throughout the next few years included Robbie Robinson, Mark McEwen, Steve Swan, and others that are not remembered right now (a full list will be shown at the bottom of the page as the owners are remembered).
Return of Magoo and a year off
McEwen returned a few years later and accepted a team in the league. Santana continued to run the league by himself but had a good reference in McEwen. He also received unofficial Commissioner help from McEwen. After a few years of this, however, Santana lost control and the league slipped away. The fall of 2000 was the first season since 1993 that Santana was not involved in running a fantasy football league. He thought that he would be able to enjoy fantasy football again if he took some time off from running a league. Years of pressure and frustration at different levels of interest among his owners drove him to decide that he was going to take a year off of running a league and hoping that he would be able to put together a league when the time came.
The M.F.L.
McEwen meanwhile had begun his own league and Santana was a team owner in the McEwen Football League. It was the first league that either McEwen or Santana was involved in that used the Internet for its day-to-day operations. Although he enjoyed the 2000 season, Santana could not handle not running a league on his own and it did not take long for him to decide that he would do his best to be a commissioner as early as 2001. The difference, however, was that Santana was determined to give a keeper league a shot. His year off had given him the idea.
The recruiting, keeper is a go
That is where he began his recruitment process. Throughout the recruitment process, Santana made certain to inform prospective owners that it would be a keeper league and tried to explain exactly what was expected of the owner.
The first owner to hop on board was, naturally, his brother Joe. Rupnick was next as Santana dug into his previous owner base to come up with the first candidates. Tony Haberkamp was another previous owner. He was living with Santana at the time and decided to be an owner with a little persuasion.
Floyd's
At the time, a couple of his drinking buddies were Al Smith and Joe Scanlan. Along with their bartender, Sam Grana of Floyd’s, Santana now had seven owners in the league with a goal of 12 teams. Grana told Santana that one of his buddies would more than likely be interested so Santana kept a spot open. This opening ended up being filled by Dan Wever to bring the teams to eight, which was now enough for a league if no more could be found.
A Floyd’s waitress’s husband was also there at Floyd’s in the rare times that Santana was there early in the night. Tom Losch agreed to be in the league and was owner number nine.
Santana, stuck at nine owners for a couple of months, finally turned to Tim Johnson, who was a drinking buddy/co-worker. Although not very interested initially, Santana was desperate to get a league of at least ten teams. Reluctantly, Johnson joined and Santana got his ten.
Second inaugural draft
That set the stage for the first draft of the second incarnation of the United Fantasy Football Association. Losch agreed to hold the draft at his house and everybody met and was introduced to each other. The tension began even before the draft. Coming into a new league, it is not known who will be most interested and who will be a problem. Al Smith made it interesting as he arrived almost a half an hour after the desired start time. But once he arrived, the draft went off without a hitch.
Cyberspace
Before that season began, Santana had set up a website at Geocities and had purchased league management software from FFLM. These would make running a league much easier than it had been before. Along with a Brave Net message board, the league was turning into a great endeavor and most owners enjoyed the new around the clock accessibility.
The next step was the naming of the divisions. Santana decided to name the divisions after two legendary NFL coaches. The Halas and Landry divisions were born.
Year one: Year of the Outlaw
Brian Rupnick won the first championship, which was called the Magoo Bowl once again. After the season, the league decided to expand and become a 12-team league. So once again, Santana was to recruit during the off-season. The first new owner was actually a partnership. Once again, Santana and Grana used Floyd’s as a recruiting haven and Joe Semro and Steve Ustrak were accepted as the eleventh team in the league. This is when Santana ran into a bit of luck.
Old acquaintances
Throughout the first version of the U.F.F.A, Jose Guzman was one of the best owners in terms of performance and activity. On a chance meeting during the off-season, Santana briefly mentioned that he was running a league and that he wanted one more owner to bring his league to twelve owners. Guzman told him that he was very interested in coming on and phone numbers were exchanged. Although Santana did not believe that Guzman was going to join, he called anyway and was pleasantly surprised that Guzman was serious.
Busy offseason
Other developments over the off-season were the new phenomenon of trading draft picks. This practice made preparing for the draft a new experience as some owners had to go with less draft picks while others had extra picks to prepare for. Also, it came out that Santana had helped Johnson run his team over the last few weeks. Although Santana holds by his statement that he had the best interests of the league in mind, the owners agreed that this action could not go unpunished and a fine was levied on both owners during the next draft. Another problem that arose involved a keeper being cut from their 2001 team. Fortunately, another team signed the player. But this allowed the league to bring up this situation and create a rule to allow for that.
Expansion draft
The first expansion draft was held and both new owners chose two players to name their keepers and the U.F.F.A was officially a twelve-team league. The 2002 season was the first in which there were three divisions as the league created a third division, the Lombardi division.Year two: Rynos WIN
Dan Wever was the champion in the second season. In the middle of the season, around week four, Johnson’s lack of attention was being called into question by the rest of the league. After a few weeks of discussion, it was decided to replace Johnson with a better owner. This was necessary for the long-term success of the league. Chris Porsch came on and quickly put his stamp on the team making trades, renaming the team and doing other things that made it apparent that he would be very active.
Quiet Offseason
The offseason between the 2002 and 2003 seasons was not a very eventful one. The league went through its first Keeper Day. This is the day (July 15th) which has been established as the day to name a team's keepers. While there were a couple of surprises, the important thing was that all 12 owners were able to get their keepers in on time. The 2003 draft brought little drama although some owners didn't make it on time. It was time for Season 3 to begin.
Year Three: Repeat.....Loss!
The third season was an exciting one. Each team except for one had at least five victories. This balance meant that many teams were still in the hunt heading into the last couple of weeks in the season. When the dust settled, the Halas division was sending three of its four teams to the postseason while the Landry division was stuck with just one team. For the second year in a row, it was an all-Halas Magoo Bowl as the Roscoes and Tattoo Crew made it to the championship. This was after the Crew and Rynos were in a duel that saw both teams scoring over 100 points to determine who would go to Magoo Bowl III. The Roscoes and Tattoo Crew were just five points from each other and the Roscoes ended up being the third different team to win a Magoo Bowl. The story, however, was the Tattoo Crew. They went down in defeat for the second time in as many seasons in the Magoo Bowl.
S & M Bowl III
The annual matchup between the MFL champions and the UFFA champions went to the Magoo Bowl for the first time in three matchups.
Trading Times
There were a few trades made during the next offseason. With the second Keeper Day coming and going, as well as two trading periods that had been agred upon by the owners, the league was going strong and heading into its draft. After waiting for a half hour, Commissioner Santana almost had to make a decision that would have meant that the Tattoo Crew would have been no more. But Joe Scanlan, after making it interesting, ended up drafting over the phone for the first two rounds and showed up shortly thereafter.
Year Four: Utter Domination
The 2004 was a season filled with firsts and they were all done by the Rynos. They completely dominated the UFFA. First, they became the first team to score 1000 points in a season. In fact, they surpassed it by quite a bit. Then in the playoffs, they became the first team to win two UFFA championships.They did this by defeating their Halas division rival Warriors in Magoo Bowl IV. Once again, the dominant Halas division had three of their four teams making the postseason with the lone exception being the Tattoo Crew.
SOLD!
The Tattoo Crew spent a miserable season just looking for a silver lining. But they never got it. In the offseason, Joe Scanlan decided to sell to Rick, a new owner who was familiar with the Commissioner and Outlaws management. In 2005, he took over a very potent roster. He will rename the team although that hasn't been done yet. Some trades made headlines in the offseason and the Stallions went into the draft with 8 picks in the first four rounds! This strategy has yet to pay off. The 2005 draft was also the first that the Commissioner could not attend due to being away at school.
Past and current U.F.F.A owners:
Robbie Robinson, Marco Santana, Joe Santana, Kris McEwen, Mark McEwen, Jeff Christiansen, Sean Califf, Joe Morrison, Charlie South, Jared Trebes, Mark Christopherson, Sam Grana, Greg Bernard, Brian Rupnick, Dan Wever, Steve Swan, Joe Semro, Steve Ustrak, Tony Haberkamp, Ray Cox, Tim Johnson, Chris Porsch, Jose Guzman, Mike Barrett, Brett Baresel, Al Smith, Joe Scanlan, Tom Losch, Jeff Anderson.