Fantasy sports

Ryan Hennigan

Millions of young children throughout the world dream of becoming professional athletes and then never succeed. They play sports throughout elementary school and high school, but then come to an abrupt end in sports on the last game of their senior seasons. However, for these inspiring high schoolers who dream of being out their throwing down a slam dunk or slugging a long ball out of the park in the bigs, they can have the next best thing.
Fantasy sports have become a big influence to high school students since their invention. No longer is it considered unusual for one to walk down a high school hallway and hear a friendly argument about who drafted the better players or how badly one fantasy team is crushing the other.
“Fantasy sports are a lot of fun. I’m playing fantasy baseball right now and I always get a kick out of it. It’s a great way to compete with your friends and share a couple laughs,” said sophomore Ryan Grindle.
Ryan Grindle is one of a large group of fantasy managers of a team that you can unknowingly come across in the high school hallways at every corner. Grindle spoke of a league of his friends that he was in, consisting of nine other PHS students and one from a private high school. Leagues can contain up to 20 teams and there is a large amount of leagues containing PHS students. Three of the many leagues with PHS students include The Super Cereal Manbearpigs [league], Damon is Lucifer, Not Jesus [league], and The Goldarn League 2007.
“I like them because I get to be in control of my own team and also because I can harass my friends when I beat them. I’m in like three leagues at the moment,” said John Prendergast, a Super Cereal Manbearpigs member.
Fantasy sports are growing in popularity with high school students because they are fun and competitive, yet this can sometimes have a negative effect in school terms as junior Kevin Daly jokingly admitted that he probably spends “more time on yahoo.com playing fantasy baseball than I do doing homework.”