A big thanks to benhoidal for putting together this thread. Brought back a lot of great memories, including Gym Rat (Franchise League), Ultimate Progressive League (every player eligible, starting as a rookie), and the BOWIS tournament. I will fill in a few blanks.
Coley (Jakotay) and I used to help each other with leagues all the time. We had many great discussions over sitemail. He was (and I’m sure still is) a great guy. His facebook page is still active, but he only gets tagged by his wife. He never posts. I saw where we both messed up the league number count. Very sad.
We shared the bowiscommish username because it made it easier to run the BOWIS threads. Coley was going through a rough time in 2011 (job loss, sick kid) so I started the ODL draft thread under bowiscommish so we could get the league going and he could still run the draft when he became available. I think the reason for the long delay before the salary change was that the league had to draft, fill, and start before the change date and we did not think that was feasible. He returned to run one more before becoming just a player and finally leaving the site in 2013.
There was a uproar created by natenoy over changing the draft league alignments from random to a draft. He was one of three players I should have had admin ban for inappropriate comments toward others in the draft forums, but we were really struggling to fill the draft leagues, so I was afraid that the leagues would fold they were kicked out. Myself and sometimes others had to take two teams to fill the league. I remember uvasooner once beat himself in the finals (not sure which draft league).
I was very much opposed to a division draft because I was concerned that, if someone was drafted first or second several times, they would take it as an insult and quit. The draft was to be conducted in the forums. I had several owners threaten to leave if I continued the random divisions. In order to keep the leagues from folding, I decided to step aside. I did continue in a double progressive league until 2014.
I left the site entirely when I had a big blowup with admin about an illegal player in my baseball franchise league. They initially refused to boot the owner until I had to give him a free team and a free team to the person who took over his team after he finally left. My fun meter was at zero and my BS meter was at 100, so it was time to go.
I would check in every few months to see what was happening. Got a great offer on baseball teams back in May so I decided to return. Glad to be back and see some of the old gang.
8/26/2021 12:17 PM (edited)