# 3 - The end of an era...Terry just shipped off his prized PFL (Placerita football league) trophy to the commissioner of the league, Jim Daggs, in Santa Clarita. For the first time since 1989 he has decided not to participate in the fantasy league that was started by a few of the guys in our old church in Southern California!

Terry's been participating in this league for 17 years and won the Super Bowl 6 of those years, which is better than 35% of the time. He also played in the Super Bowl many other years, just missing the trophy with second place. Because of his skill at the game, he became one of the primary targets for the other teams to beat each year.

This trophy has made it through all those years too. It even survived the Northridge earthquake in 1994. It's a bit nicked and scratched and scraped up, but still has the name and year of every guy who won the PFL Super Bowl since 1989. I suggested once that maybe we should replace the football on top just because there was a big spot where the gold finish was missing, but Terry wouldn't let me. He said it gave the trophy character!

One of the great ground rules that the guys decided about this league when it started, was that it wasn't going to be about the money. It was about the skill, knowledge, strategy and spirit of competition. One of the requirements was that the small amount of money that they won for first or second place, HAD to be used to take their wife (or significant other) out to dinner. Great news for me! One year our son, Kevin and his friend, Josh came in second in the PFL. Since they weren't married and didn't have girlfriends at the time, it was decided that they had to take their mothers out to dinner. So Josh, his mom Jamie, Kevin and I enjoyed a great meal together at Red Robin. What a great memory!

The potential for a nice dinner out was at least some consolation for the wives who gave up countless hours while their husbands researched players, watched the games every Sunday and Monday, checked the box scores and the injury lists and stood around after church "trash-talking" about which PFL team was going to win in the matchups each week. Especially in the early days when there weren't resources on the internet or special magazines and articles specifically about fantasy football.

Back when they started the league, it wasn't the big business that it is today. Now you can get your list of players to draft already compiled for you. That's a little bit of why Terry's decided to retire from the PFL...the challenge isn't what it used to be. He really loved the research and statistics and all the attention to detail that was needed to win and its just much easier now for everyone else to get the same information that he worked so hard for.

So the football season won't be quite the same this year. Terry won't be keeping track of how many touchdowns this guy got or how many yards another guy ran. Oh, I'm guessing he'll be watching what's going on with the guys who are still in the PFL and will be harassing them by email like he did when he was in the league, but it just won't be the same somehow, I just might miss it too...