Junior Joe Rolen has always been a huge football fan, following his Green Bay Packers almost obsessively. This obsession gradually progressed into the creation of a fantasy football league, adding even more fun to the mix of football and its fans.

“My love for football is the reason I started doing fantasy football leagues,” Rolen said. “It’s a fun activity you can do with your friends.”

Rolen participates in a league with juniors Nolan Gilbert, Sam Dores, Joey Rainey, Michael Hennessey, Matthew Del Signore, Zachary Lalande, Will Oviatt and Luke Lundy and AHS alumnus Nathan Reel.

However, some participants are not as involved in their fantasy league as others.

“I like football, but I pretty much only do fantasy football because my friends do,” Lundy said. “I prefer watching the game on my television and just getting the normal experience.”

Fantasy football leagues are becoming increasingly common among students due to the increased popularity of the Internet. Students participate in fantasy sports by building their own teams with actual major league players to compete against other teams in the league based on real player statistics.

The biggest among all fantasy sports is football. Due to the fall season, the student body and faculty involvement in fantasy football leagues has already begun to grow.

“I used to play in a fantasy baseball league with my friends,” Rolen said. “But watching the games and keeping up with statistics aren’t as interesting as they are in football.”

Unlike real life football, fantasy football focuses mainly on offensive production.

Players choose a quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker and team defense. Points are scored by a team based on the statistics players achieve while playing in their respective games.

ESPN, Yahoo!, CBS sports and a number of smaller leagues are available for anyone to participate in.

 “The success of your team is based on your players,” Rolen said. “Green Bay has the best players, so I pick the best players and get to use my favorite team. I call my team ‘The Cheeseheads’.”

  An important part of fantasy football is the draft. This draft works like a real NFL draft where all players are available for the league to choose from. Drafts can be done either online through the league site or they can be completed off-line. The strategy of the draft is to form the most complete team possible to achieve consistency. Members should try to pick players that are not all on the same NFL team.

   However, because not all NFL teams play every week, some players are unable to earn points if their team does not have a game.

Therefore, depending on their league, participants can choose 6-8 players to use every week from all of their drafted players.

    Participants should look at the match-ups their players have each week in order to figure out which of their players will perform best based on who they will be playing against. In most leagues, members can watch the scoring live in order to make this process easier.

 “The best part about fantasy football is the fact that I do it with my friends,” Gilbert said. “And the best part about that is beating them.”