GMs - let's introduce and get to know each other more

[cyril]

Have been with the league for almost 4 years now. Come to think of it, there are many GMs whom I know only by their avatar and nothing else. Given the recent influx of new GMs, I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread so we can know more about one another - a little personal background of whatever you want to share. I will start:

I am Cyril, that's my avatar as well as my real name. Heard this name is quite popular in France but is rare in USA, where it somehow got the notorious association with "old people". Hell I don't know any better when I picked it as a teenager. Yes, I got to pick my own english name, since I was not given one at birth.

I was born in Hong Kong, that little former British colony on the other side of globe from America. Didn't know anything about football (or American football to be precise) until I enrolled at U of Miami in early 90's, when they were at their top of the game. Having the privilege of attending a bunch of their own home games during their winning steak, I fell in love with this complicated game as a spectator and football replaced soccer as my favorite sport.

An architect by training, I enjoy doing graphics design as a hobby, mainly posters for choirs and theaters in the past. Thanks Mike and Bob for allowing me to put up some stuff for FFL. I really enjoyed doing that and it became a quarterly challenge when I started designing banners for the bowl winning team. Really glad that the recipients like the work as well.

After spending a dozen or so years in the architectural profession, my wife and I decided to move back to Asia. First Hong Kong, then a couple months back, to Taiwan. I missed the sport culture in USA a lot. While there's no 24/7 coverage of ESPN here, there are TV channels that broadcast NFL games so I can still get my fix of the real stuff. I don't have any real favorite NFL team, as I have lived in several American cities and have not had a chance to develop a deep affiliation with any local team. My current team Denver just happened to be the only one available when I discovered FFL. Once I started building it, I became attached to it and so far it's the only team I managed in MP leagues.

Should any of you have a chance to visit the Orient, call me up and I will be glad to take you around. Promise, no dog meat or shark fin soup.

Here let's open up to others.....

[Marv]

Cyril I thinks thats a fantastic idea...What the hell here's goes.

My real name is Rob some of you know this others just know me as Marv. I choose Marv because I am a real life Bills fans I bleed that red white a blue. And Marv Levy is my favoritest of all Bills head coaches.
I'm a United States Marine Corps Veteran... I was a CH46 helicopter crewchief. My biggest regret in life was deciding to leave. By the time I realized you can take the Marine outta the Corp you will never take the Corps outta the Marine...When I decided I needed to go back my 2nd wife had said to me no ****ing way babes...I think today she regrets not letting me Ooh-Rah and Semper Fi fellow devil dogs and other veterans.

I have 4 beautiful daughters my oldest soon to be 17 my youngest soon to be 9. I work for a private contractor and we do work in alot of the Buffalo/Niagra Falls region for differant companies. Nicet Chemical Plant in NF, Covanta Energy in NF,Philly, Rochester, Nestle/Purina in Dunkirk which is where I am mostly stationed..

My favorite sport is hockey, nfl football and last but not least baseball favorite hockey team is the Buffalo Sabres baseball Chicago Cubs in the NL and the Texas Rangers in the AL...

I've got hooked on simulation football playing a game called Football Moguls... Does anyone remember that one? I then discovered FOF and bought FOF 2004 then the FOF 2007.. I been in FFL since 2007 when we still were playing the 2004 version The GM's that have been here longer then myself...HOF commissioner Arizing540-(Pit), WashingtonGM-(Was), Mel Kiper-(KC), tab-(Mia)...and then theres a good number of ya'll that have been here for a long time cyril-(den), zbuck-(NE) someone that has mad it a tradition to beat me twice a year for the past 20 seasons..

Some of ya'll know this game inside and out. And even though I have been playing this game for so long I just dont grasp all the numbers and getting my team to do what I want it to...It just makes my head hurt sometimes....

Thanks for letting me share Rob.....aka MARV

[Red Zone]

Ok Cyril, Im in

I am Red Zone, or Bob
Im married and have a son (17) who will be a senior in high school this fall,and a daughter (20) who is in the Air National Guard and starting college in the fall.
We live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...Steeler Country.
I work for the largest Bakery in our area, driving a Route Delivery Truck for them.
That may be my biggest achilles heal in FOF...missing Drafts because of work and having no cpu access at work.
Getting an Iphone has helped that some, and right now im on vacation as this draft is going on.

I spent the last 10 years or so Coaching Baseball, had more fun than the kids did i think, and now im just a retired ex manager who keeps score. It was fun watching kids i coached at the instructional level at age 7 and 8 win a Colt League (15-16-17) Federation Championship Friday Night. They still call me "coach" after all these years...thats kinda neat

Ive been in love with the game of Football since I was about 10 or 11 yrs old, when i saw one of our Middle school games.
I played QB in High School, and Ive coached a little bit, but my son plays Baseball and soccer and I spent my time working with him and coaching a lot more baseball than Football. I was never one of those Dads that made their kid play a sport...he chose what he liked and wanted to do...i was just happy to be involved.
I do not own a Horse named clipoty clog, as Bill Walsh claims...although when its time to cut the grass sometimes i wish i did LOL
Apparently he went and googled me and saw a pic of my house when the road in front of us was under construction and hes been bustin my balls about livin way out in the country ever since. We live 10 minutes from Downtown Pittsburgh.

Running FFL has been a challenge and I enjoy it 95% of the time...the other 5% is when i need to learn how to get up and just walk away from the computer.
I cant say im very Good at this game, Im an average GM and I know it...and I accept that.
With a great roster (Like The Colts) my teams can be very dangerous and I have gotten some gameplanning help from some of the better GMs so I can compete, but im far from being in the class of some of the better GMs...especially when it comes to drafting.
Like Cyril i have become fascinated with the graphics part of this game lately, although he is far better at it than I am...i have a new found appreciation for the work he has done with the banners...i would love to be able to create stuff like that.

Next....

[Slimmikey]

Ok Cyril, here is goes

My Name is Mike (Cardsgm, Iowa, and Slimmikey). I have been married for almost 11 years. I have 2 great kids. My daughter is 7 years old and her hair color is the same as my goatie (Auburn). My son is the great age of 4. We have a blast together. I have coached high school and middle school basketball for 14 years. I semi retired from coaching when my daughter was born. I decided I want to be a dad 1st and coach 2nd. With Varsity basketball games starting at 7:30 I would not get home till after 10. I think I made the right choice. My daughter is big on dance and my son is going to start soccer in the fall. I am a elementary school teacher. I have taught 2nd and 4th grades. I really enjoy it. My wife just got a promotion this past October. So it moved our family from Jacksonville to Orlando. I live 10 miles from Epcot and 13 from the Magic Kingdom. My kids are very spoiled. Currently he have Sea world and Wet n Wild season passes. So we go to one of them every weekend. In November we will be getting Disney season tickets. So almost every Sat we will go to a park for about 4 hours in the morning.

Since I lived in Jacksonville my whole life I am a huge Jags fan. They were actually born on my 21st birthday. Nov 30th 1993. That was a great night. I had season tickets from 1995-2009. After the 2nd kid it was just to hard to be gone all sunday. Both my parents are from New York, so in all sports besides Football I am a NY fan. Mets, Knicks, and Islanders. Even though I am extremely knowledgeable in basketball, Football is my number 1. College Football is my favorite sport. My favorite game is NCAA for XBOX 360. One of my good friends actually makes the game at EA sports Orlando. I love watching college football. It is a blast. Those young men give it everything they have for the love of the game. It is much easier for me to get excited about a San Jose St vs Nevada Saturday night at 10:30pm, then SD and KC Sunday at 4. I normally only watch the jags on Sundays. Even though they suck, look out for WR Cecil Shorts, SS Jonathan Cyprien, and RB yes RB Denard Robinson.

I have been playing multi-player football games for a long time. My Cousin and I started a league with 18 teams, created our own names and called it the USFL. The game we used was called Front page sports 95 or 96. Most of the teams were friends of ours. The draft was only 3 rounds. Most of the owners attended the draft live. I made a online magazine called USFL Illustrated. We did one once a month. Then my cousin and I jumped in on Front office football in 2004 and created a new USFL league. This league had 32 teams but we loved the name so we kept it. After playing in a fictional team league I wanted to join one with NFL teams and cities. So I joined FFL. I think I am pretty good at building a team, I am solid at drafting players except for QBs and WRs. I love writing articles for the league. But with the business of moving this summer to Orlando and getting a job and the house situated I have not had the time. I love this league very much. When I am having trouble falling a sleep at night I pick one of my league teams and think about what holes I need to fill in the off-season.

Cyril if I ever get a chance I would love to visit the orient. My favorite foods are from there. And if we hang I only want to eat foods that they dont serve in the U.S. One of my favorite shows is Bizarre foods with Andrew Zimmer. I would try about 75-80% of the foods on that show. Besides Lobster my favorite thing to eat is Salmon Roe and baby octopus.

[Bill Walsh]

My name is Simon, I'm a single parent and my 16 year old son is called Kailan. I'm English (that's not British but English ). I've worked in IT Sales for what seems like ever (hit me up on linked in if you want too) . I played most sports until my early 20's when young women and alcohol took over. Happy days! I got married (not so happy days!) Kai arrived and it got better!

I am huge a football fan (you call it soccer) and I follow West Ham. http://www.whufc.com/page/Home . I used to go all the time but being a single parent it now difficult to do a 100 mile round trip etc to see them week in week out. I got in to your football in 1986 when the mighty Raiders won the Superbowl and they showed a few minutes on TV over here. I thought the silver and black uniforms where pretty cool (i was young and impressionable in those days!) and have followed them ever since. We get loads of NFL here with about 3-4 live games a week, but i always watch the Raiders. I started playing sports sims back in the early 80's on a Spectrum ZX81, playing Football Manager and Football Director (soccer games) and my first American Football game was Head Coach on the Amiga i think. I've played so many sports sims since i could write a book i think but now a days its just Football Manager and FOF. In FOF I would describe my self as a very good planner but an average drafter and to be honest i don't have the interest anymore to sit and test to work out drafting. I'm super competitive in everything i do which one or two of you may have noticed . I hate tankers and Bob does have a horse. My past times are my son, most sports, PC games ( i love Civi), Whiskey and of course fine art! I would not mind getting married again' alas i can't find a 20 year mute blonde nymphomaniac with big ****, who likes football (both forms) and cooks a mean curry. smh.

[tab]

I'll chirp in. Tab is actually my initials; my real name is tim. I grew up in NC & still live in Raleigh. Growing up in NC in the 80's-90's, Braves baseball & ACC basketball were my first loves. Going to a passionate college football school, with rich tailgating traditions, has since made college football my main passion. I even went back for my masters since I enjoyed college life so much. I rarely missed a NCSU game and use to get season tickets until we had our daughter. I have been married 8 years now, as we got married while I was in grad school. Our daughter is 3 now and she is a bit of a fireball. She keeps us on our toes and she is probably the reason I don't spend much time game-planning and game studying.

I am a Chemistry lab supervisor with one of the state Agriculture labs, but I've also worked with the Public Health Lab. So I can probably tell you anything you want to know about Pesticides, Antifreeze, Well water testing, blah, blah, blah. Exciting stuff, I know.

There were no local pro franchises growing up, so for football, every sunday we pretty much would get big national games on TV, which normally involved Miami, Dallas, Washington, & SF. I liked watching Dan Marino the best, so he & the dolphins became my team. It may have also been that my dad liked the skins, and my brother liked the niners, so I had to like someone else. Of course, later on, the Panthers were created, and Miami, well, does not have Dan Marino, so I guess I follow them more. Although I often watch Phillip Rivers & SD too, since I went to NCSU the same time as PR (and yes, he's just ask ****y off the field). The Hurricanes have moved to Raleigh, so I have been introduced to hockey as well, and try to catch them when I can.

I got into sim sports through OOTP. I discovered OOTP 4 in college and became an avid player. I still manage my original Multiplayer team, Pioneers of the Diamond. I got into several leagues at one point, and after wanting a new challenge, I got into FOF & this league. I currently only play in this league & POTD in OOTP, as other leagues have folded, and I just don't have the time or energy with family & work. I also help coach a work softball team.

[tarcone]

Im lurking today looking to swing deals. Waiting to pick.

Im tarcone on the board. They are the initials of the 4 members of my family. My name is Tom.

I live on the outskirts of the St Louis Metropolitan area. The town is very blue collar. But it also a bedroom community. So there is a mix.
Good school district of which my wife and I are staff members. I teach 6th grade P.E. and my wife teaches Special Ed.
I used to play rugby, which is my number one participation sport. Just above baseball and softball. None of which I do anymore. Im 46 on Thursday. Jeez. Im surprised I made it this far. The rest is icing on the cake. Going to enjoy it. Time sure flys. I moved to St Louis in 1992 from Iowa. Born and raised an Iowa Hawkeye. Grew up righ near the University. Played football and baseball in High school. But more importantly, I was an avid text sim sports board game player. I love stratis pro baseball, and title bout, and statis pro basketball, and basketball strategy, and a whole slate of others. During this period I found on play by mail baseball league. You mailed lineups, they mailed back results. It was a national baseball league. Next was rotissere baseball. We had a Commish who hand did all the stats and standings. And word processed it up. Then we found on line stat programs. COOL. Then I found baseball mogul leagues online. I was hooked. One guy from one my old leagues a guy told me about FOF2004. So I bought it and found FOFC. Then I started playin MP right away. I have never played this SP. I have ben in many leagues.

My favorite spectator sports. I love watching college football. I will watch any game. The Iowa Hawkeyes are my team. Live and die with them.
I like to watch the St Louis Cardinals. But I much prefer sitting on my front patio listening to them on the radio. I dont watch much pro football anymore. I just like the college game much better. I like college basketball as well.

We have 2 beautiful girls.
Riley is my 13 year old. Entering 8th grade. Changing from daddys little girl. To a young lady. She suffered through us putting her in sports with balls. She is not a real fan of those. She is going to play basketball in HS. though. But she found her niche running. She is a good cross country runner and a distance runner in track. Though, she thinks she will be a pole vaultor. She finished 3rd in conference with 7th and 8th grade girls combined cross country. Not bad. Luckily, her mom was an all state cross country runner. And there is an 8th grade runner that is a great leader. In track she runs the 4x800, 800 and mile.

Cori is 11 and going into 6th grade. Her thing is reading, basketball and soccer. She is taller and bigger then her 13 year old sister. Like 2 inches and 20 pounds. And she is more confident in team sports. She plays basketball 3/4 of the year. She is ok. She has talent. She just isnt realizing it. She does pretty well at soccer. Plays defense. We are playing a greade up this season. Should be interesting.

Very different girls. In all ways.

Kind of a ramble. But enjoy.

[Melkiper]

Hi.. my name is Mel and I'm an alcoholic.

Kinda kidding, sorta. My name is actually Marco. Live in upstate NY. Was born in Manhattan so I'm a little city and a little country.

I don't have kids, and am not married.....but I'm not gay! Those that know me know I've got some wild tales of women and risky business!

I've been a text nerd for awhile, before I discovered some crap text sim called WCBM (boxing texts) I actually used to create my own text sport sims by creating and writing every little statistic and had my own formula for matching them up against eachother. I was doing this when I was like 12. Pretty lame if someone asked me what I was working on.

Finally I discovered FOF which I played single player for years. I got bored, and thought, hey this would be cool to play with other people since its not fair to manually force trades in SP and watch the number #1 overall spot be a Kicker taken.

FFL was my first league ever! It was started by some screwball named Jave. He totally screwed every GM and closed the league without notice in the first yr. Somehow I was able to pretend I was somebody and kept everybody around until Arizing took over (i think thats how it went). Not sure if I remember correctly but I know I had somethin to do with somethin.

I enjoy hangin with the fellas, and am a big sports dude. I follow college football and basketball, as well as pro football and basketball, baseball. I also follow baseball and golf, and boxing. I was a decent athlete in my younger days. BTW I'm 34.

My favorite NFL player of all time is Barry Sanders.

In my spare time I am a fairly competitive powerlifter. Have lifted 600lb+ on deadlift, 400 bench, and 450 squat. I usually win the deadlift competitions, but these days my back is bad, so I just lift to be in shape now. I NOT MEATHEAD.

To add to my stereo typical profile, I also am a big muscle car dude. though I recently traded mine for a big ass truck.

I'm an avid fisherman and a damn good one too.

I work as a program manger for a non for profit agency that serves people with disabilties. (thats how I met Kailan)

I enjoy long walks in the park, and love cats. Tell your sisters!

[aston2171]

Cool! Let's sticky this one.

I'm aston and I like to play pretend general manager.

In real life I'm I s'pose a student for now out in California. It's good fun, at least when I don't have to worry about what's next.

I follow the NFL, and that's about it as far as sports goes. I like soccer, too, but don't follow it outside of the world cup and the national teams. My hometown team are the New England Patriots. Lately though I'm enjoying following my pretend teams more than RL football. More in tune with the rosters!

I started out playing Bowl Bound College Football and eventually moved to FOF. I was a little intimidated by all the options and the interface of the game, so I stuck with single player for a while. Finally, I made the jump to multiplayer. I was introduced here by Kailan...first to QB E.J. Manuel, and later to the opening and the team. Felt like a good time to take a QB after already having seen the rookie in the draft class and telling him it was my favorite one.

In my spare time I like to do programming projects related to FOF, but unfortunately I'm not very good at it.

[Arizing540]

My name is Mike and I'm a skilled tradesman for Ford Motor Company. I work from 6pm til 6:30am, 7 days a week, so my FOF time has been extremely limited lately. Especially when you factor in the hour drive I have each way to and from work. I'm on my 2nd marriage and have 3 kidlets from my 1st marriage. My girls are 15 & 14 and heavily involved in soccer. My son is 11 and is a video game junkie.

Simon likes to rip on Bob for living out in the country... well... I'm way out in the middle of nowhere myself. I've lived in my house for over 2 years and I couldn't even tell you what my neighbors look like. I'm on a 101 acres and the house sits a quarter mile off the road. I can look out my front window and see the neighbor's horses and I often have deer, turkeys, rabbits, and coyotes in my yard. I absolutely love the privacy.

I got into FOF back in 2003. I was in the RNFL, which was using Madden before making the switch to FOF. I took over things here in the FFL shortly there after when the former commish jumped ship. Mel was a huge help keeping things a float, as well as David (GM Washington). I joined the USFL after that and will always remain in those 3 leagues for as long as they keep going.

Outside of the internet, I'm a huge Boston Red Sox fan and love baseball in general. I also love taking random road trips and have been all up and down the US east of the Mississippi. I live near Flint, Michigan, but my best friend lives down in Savannah, GA, so i head down that way at least once a year. I'm also a HUGE halloween/horror fan, and I take road trips to haunted houses, my favorite one being down in Columbus, OH. There's one out in Pittsburgh that I used to go to as well, but it's been a few years.

[Hoosier]

hoosierdave.jpg
GM David "Hoosier" Owens, Indiana University Hoosiers
6-0, who the hell knows lbs
High Volatility
Wants Winner Strong
Conflict with Tarcone, Red Zone, Washington G.M.
Lands 01/01 Post TC 01/00 NC/-1


I'm known as Hoosier, in some leagues as the chronic Loosier, and my real name is David. Owens. David Owens. Just the facts jack! I'm an old man and getting older, flirting with 57. Well, she says she's 25, but I think the neighbor lady is actually closer to my age at 57. But, we're still flirting. She's got a nice rack for someone that old.

I'm a retired soldier and proud U.S. Army Air Cavalry Trooper, Air Cav, Air Assault, Arctic Warrior, We Can, We Will, Hooahh! (oops...slipped back into hooah mode there for a second..). My knees remind me of that every day. Sergeant, Aeroscout, Kiowa helicopter Maintenance NCO, Air Assault, NBC Skill Identifier, and Arctic Survival Expert.

I'm also a retired creative writing teacher/language arts teacher at the secondary level. Actually was Teacher of the Year two consecutive years and I'm proud of that. Graduated from IU Bloomington where football always sucks, but the basketball is recovering.

I have three daughters, three grandkids, and two wives. Okay, one's an ex wife, but who's counting? The oldest daughter graduated from IU; the second from Wright State, and the third is transferring from Wright State to Ohio State. OUCH!!! Anywhere but OSU!

My current wife and I have been married for 28 years and I think she's bored. She reads those corrupt little Twilight books and Twilight fan fiction, and I keep pointing out that Twilight corrupted and ruined the vampire legends. I mean.. vampires that sparkle in the sunlight? Who needs a My Little Pony Blood Sucker? Not me. But she walks around in her Team Edward night shirts and bites me in the neck, and other places. a lot these days.

She's in charge of pensions for NCR (National Cash Register) and a virtual employee so she has her office here in her childhood home where we take care of her mother. So, we're back in Indiana. Again. She, my wife's mother, has senile dementia and will be ninety in a month or so. So, I take care of Mom In Law while she--the wife-- works in her office. I have a Moderately Mentally Handicapped minor on my BS degree, so those lessons help in caring for her.

I know that many of you have never met me on the forums since I'm relatively new to the game, and I don't talk much, so I thought I'd jump in and say..

That's who I am.

[cyril]

I don't believe that picture is you but I believe you are a creative writing teacher. nice! You'd better sign up for a division preview, don't want to waste your talent.

[Julio Riddols]

Hey there guys, I'm Julio. Some people call me Shane, though. I'm a stay at home dad and aspiring fiction writer with a couple ideas in the works. As soon as my son starts school I intend to make these ideas into real things. I have learned a new level of respect for stay at home moms and dads after experiencing it myself, because this is probably the most high intensity work I have done aside from unloading trucks at Wal Mart when I was younger. A crazy 3 year old running around trying to kill himself is not the easiest thing to keep in line, but it's definitely fun watching him grow up and it keeps me on my toes.

I'm a life long Bengals fan, and life is good right now after all those years of complete and utter suckitude. Marvin Lewis has been a godsend. He might not be the best game manager, but I think he has an uncanny eye for talent and coaches players up better than most. The depth and quality of their roster may be the best in team history right now since their reboot in 2011.

I enjoy graphic design, although I am an amateur in every sense.. I even use software from 2003 (Paint Shop Pro 8) for my work, mostly due to my familiarity with it. I just haven't had the patience or the funds to get into Photoshop. I think I do good work, but as always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I could go back and change my educational trajectory coming out of high school, I think I would be actually working from home as a freelance artist instead of wishing I could work from home as a freelance artist.

My favorite food is either cereal or pizza, I have a Seinfeld level cereal collection and could probably eat pizza every other day for the rest of my life without getting tired of it.

My fiancee is an assistant manager at Quality Inn, which is nice. When we want to travel, accommodations are always affordable. She is also amazing for putting up with my goofy quirks, which most normal women would get tired of fairly quickly.

What else can I tell you about me..

I have lived in Indiana, Arizona, Alaska and North Carolina in my life, in that order. NC looks to be my long term home though, and we're hoping to buy a house and make it official in a year or two.

I also love FOF. I spent virtually my entire childhood building and operating a construction paper football league with players cut out of different colors. They were cut to scale to match a blanket I had that had a football field on one side. I had drafts, trades, injuries, and everything. Injuries would be determined at the end of a season, when players would get an all expense paid trip through the blades of a box fan running on high. Some would lose arms and legs, which would get taped back on and serve as a reminder of their injury history.. Some of the older players were pretty beat up, anything from broken necks (head chopped partially off) to torn groins.. I'm sure you can imagine what caused a torn groin diagnosis. The quality of the players when being drafted or traded was determined by the symmetry and quality of the cut out or re-cut. The lopsided guys were bench players and the rest were average backups basically, while the symmetrical guys were legends. We had 6 initial teams in the league (Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Orange, and the perennial losers, Pink) but later expansion brought the number as high as 10 with White, Light Blue, Gray and Black joining the fray. We played a 20 game season. I was always on the lookout for different colored construction paper from about the age of 6 to my Junior year of High School, when FOF came out. It blew my mind, and it is basically the game I have dreamed of playing since I was in 1st grade. Since then I have been playing FOF almost religiously. The game has come a LOOONG way since the beginning, too.

Anyway, I guess I will end this spiel now by saying thanks for having me, and I look forward to bringing the Packers all the titles I can.

[Caldwell]

Caldwell

AKA Vitostallion

AKA RavensGM

Real name is Keith. I'm an systems architect for a major telecom provider. I live in sunny Tampa Florida with my GF of 8 years. We love the beach, blues clubs, happy hours. I have two teenage daughters and a son in the army. I'm the biggest Jags fan you'll ever meet and was actually in J-ville when we were awarded the team. I became an FOF lifer as Vito in the Imperial league. Hobbies include graphic design, digital painting, and music production (iTunes: Keith Wolfe, Soundcloud: Phuchaphly). All I've got.

[cyril]

good to know someone who shares similar interest (graphic design)