ALL-WATERLOO FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUE

December 12, 2011

TIMOTHY JOHNSTON
Commissioner

Dear AWFFL Owner: As your Commissioner, I wish to congratulate you on, what is turning out to be, a very successful fifth year of our beloved Fantasy Football League. Id also like to extend special congratulations to the fortunate team Owners who haveand WILL havemade it to the AWFFL Final Four as at the end of tonights Seahawks/ Rams game. Hopefully, the remaining three play-off games will prove to be as incredible and exciting as this weeks games certainly were. Working together over the past five years, I believe ALL of our Owners have made our League a fun and exciting diversion from what can normally be a pretty humdrum North American middle-class existence. As a result of this, I cant tell you how proud I am to be the Commissioner of, what I believe, to be one of the best, most entertaining and most tightlyknit Fantasy Football leagues in the world (think about that one for a moment). The amount of thought, work, creativity, and energy that goes into an entire season of the AWFFL is very impressive, and I feel it is something of which ALL of our team Owners should be proud. It is through your contribution to the League that it becomes not only just a game, but a Communityone whose benefits that you may be able to enjoy for many years to come. It is important to remember that a Community is just thata place where people can come to commune or congregate with each other under a common purpose or bond. It is also important to note that with a congregation of people, one is bound to be exposed to many different personalities and differences among them. As your Commissioner, I would invite you to accept and even relish the differences among our league Owners and to realize that one of the best things about the AWFFL is this diversity. As an AWFFL Owner, you are a member of an exclusive club where no one is policing your behaviour, mode of expression, belief system, political correctness, or manners. Our Community allows you the freedom to do as you pleaseeven if that means pissing off one or more of your League brethren through the use of some black-hearted smack or just plain viciousness. It also means that, from time to time, you may be the victim of one of your cohorts mean, or brutish assaults. I truly believe, that in our collective heart of hearts, were all aware that virtually all of the ridiculous vitriol and mock hatred that flies about in our League comes from a place of mutual respect and admirationand if were NOT aware of that, thats our own self-esteem issue which we need to work out (perhaps with the help of a professional). With this in mind, I feel it is necessary to formally address you today with a timely message of great importance. If our League is to continue to provide us with so much excitement, freedom and joy going forward, I feel that some recent comments directed at me need to be addressed and certain matters pertaining to League rules must be dealt with. It has come to my attention that certain League Owners are not having as much fun this year as they have in the past and feel that they are not being treated fairly under the established rules of the League.

As Commissioner, this development is very troubling to me and here is why I feel it is necessary to address this once and for all and to set any troubled Owners minds at ease: Firstly, my ultimate goal for this League is to make sure that everyone enjoys playing fantasy football as much as I do; this means that if ANY League Owner indicates dissatisfaction or unhappiness with the way I run the League, I feel that I am not accomplishing this goal. Secondly, because I am not only the Commissioner of the League, but also a team Owner, I feel that it is of utmost importance for all other team Owners to trust that I hold ALL League Owners best interests on par with my own. If any AWFFL Owner feels that this is not the case, I believe I have failed in my duties as Commissioner.

With respect to this second goal, I believe it is my job to instil the belief in all of my AWFFL Owners that the game is not fixed in favour of myself or one or more of their competitors. This can be difficult to do when certain situations or rule disputes arise which may or may not be explicitly covered in writing in the Leagues Constitution. In such cases, team Owners must be willing to have faith that the highest authority (the Commissioners office) will fairly pass judgement on these matters and make a just decision without favouritism (even if it may not coincide with their own opinion) or the League cannot work. Without this faith and an implicit agreement to abide by the Commissioners final decision, no rules needing to be decided upon the spur of the moment could ever be passed, and almost no dispute resolution could ever be possible, ultimately making the League unable to function. For this reason, I believe that the only way for me to fully assuage any team Owners suspicions that I might treat my own team (or that of any other Owner(s), for that matter) any differently than theirs under the established League rules, there must be full transparency, and an atmosphere of mutual respect and open communication. I think our League has this in place. Our Leagues Constitution (which is located in the League Rules section of the League home page), is designed to provide transparency and some objective rules which serve as the basis for all of the decisions the Commissioner, or the League as a whole, have decided upon. As it is written in the Constitution, Typically, any changes to the League rules are done at the annual Owner's Meeting. Motions must be passed with a 75% majority of all Owners. However, The Commissioner has complete power to rule over any situations that arise from time to time during the season and his ruling will always stand until the end of that season. If any Team Owner wishes to overturn a rule made by The Commissioner during the season, they must present it for a vote at the next Annual Owner's Meeting. In order to have the rule overturned it must be agreed upon by at least 75% of the Team Owners. Although this may seem heavy-handed to some, this excerpt is included in the Constitution to resolve any disputes that may arise during the season as a result of any vague wording in the League rules that may lead to the dispute. Because no constitution on the planet can possibly account for every single scenario that may arise in a game, there must be a way of resolving disputes before and as they occur and this particular method has been long been decided to be sufficient and acceptable for the AWFFL. AND NOW TO THE OTHER MATTER AT HAND: I have recently had communication from The Blue Team Looks Fast (Blue) and O.J. Can Still Run (O.J.) (and also some other team Owners who feel the need to get involved with other teams business) with regards to their shared belief that the rules have been unfairly applied in the case of their being fined for finishing in second-last and third-last position in the official League standings. It is their belief that, because they do not finish in their respective positions when the play-off seeding tie-breaker procedures are applied, they should not be fined as per the League rules which, incidentally, are designed to discourage the unwanted practice of tanking in order to receive a better draft pick in the following years draft.

Because, as they point out, the wording of the League Constitution may be construed as being vague with regards to what tie-breaking procedures should be used to determine League fines, they feel that, not only should O.J. be absolved of having to pay any fine whatsoever as under the play-off seeding tie-breaking procedures he would have finished in fourth-last place, but that they should each also get the advantage of the better draft picks next year as the 2nd and 3rd place finishers from a draft order standpoint. As this particular dispute arises from a question of the ambiguity of the rules in the League Constitution, it naturally falls to the Constitution to determine that the responsibility for the dispute resolution must be handled solely by the Commissioner in this case, and that any further discussion with regards to the acceptability of the Commissioners decision must be handled at next years draft. Speaking as the person who was ultimately responsible for pouring over the standings and tie-breaking procedures year to determine play-off and draft-order of what was a ridiculously tight play-off race this, I can tell you at NO time did the thought ever cross my mind to use the play-off seeding tie-breaking procedures to determine the order of who would end up paying fines. I can also tell you that the draft-order tie-breaking procedures have ALWAYS been used as the determinant as to who has paid fines (and also won the lessthan-coveted Scotty Norwood and Ryan Leaf Awards) in past years. It is also a true fact that, until I received the message board post this weekend from the O.J.s even mentioning using the play-off seeding tie-breakers to determine the fines, it had never even occurred to me to use them for this reason. In fact, as one can glean from looking at the Standings section of our Leagues history, it is clearly evident that in 2010, there was a three way tie for last place with regards to overall winning percentage, but due to Blues divisional record (as per the draft-order tiebreaking procedures), Blue finished third-last and ended up having to only pay a fine of $75. As per the draft-order tie-breaking procedures, the 1st and 2nd last place finish were determined as a result of a televised coin flip which ended in Tigers Tail being awarded 1st draft pick and O.J. being awarded the second. Obviously, the fines were the same in this case ($100) and were not even a point of discussion. It is interesting to note, that had the playoffseeding tie-breaking procedures been put into effect, Tigers Tail would have been awarded 3rd last place based on the merits of their 2-0 head-to-head record against Blue and O.J., and this would have also meant they would have drafted third overall and paid the smaller fine amount. OFFICIAL RULING: For these reasons, and for the fact that the whole reason as to why the fines are levied in the first place is to hinder people from tanking games to get a better draft pick, the draft-order tie-breaking procedures will and shall be used in the future to determine who is fined at the end of every AWFFL season. The Constitution will be amended to include this specific wording to avoid any future disputes. However, because of the fact that this was not spelled out in black and white in the Constitution, I will not enforce the fine against O.J. Can Still Run. The Blue Team will still be responsible for the $75 fine for which she would have been responsible had the play-off seeding tie-breaking procedures been used to determine fines. Sincerely,

TIMOTHY JOHNSTON
Commissioner