Park Ridge Man Wins $75K for Fantasy Football
Played in 11 leagues this year, won big in high stakes contest
By ANDREW GREINER
Updated 1:30 PM CDT, Fri, Jan 15, 2010
Don Metter, of Park Ridge, Illinois is a fantasy football nut; his wife, not so much.
But that was before Metter won $75,000 in the second annual Fantasy Football Players Championship, where he beat 228 participants for the grand prize.
“Not surprisingly she’s ok with it now,” Metter said.
“Funny thing is we just bought a house and haven’t sold our current one, so there was some hand-wringing about taking on an extra mortgage payment,” Metter told NBCChicago.com. “This eases things up quite a bit for you know, remodeling, a new TV, whatever.”
What was his winning formula?
“I just got lucky,” he said. “But it’s better to be lucky than good.”
Metter flew to Las Vegas last summer to participate in a live draft at Ceaser’s Palace. He footed the bill for his travel and paid the $1,400 entry fee for the tournament.
During the draft he took Titan’s running back Chris Johnson with his first pick, landed Tom Brady as his quarter back and things kind of took off from there.
“Actually the receivers I got in the draft were kind of terrible, but I ended up trading late for Brandon Marshall and Miles Austin and it just worked out.”
Metter has already been paid by the folks at MYFFPC.com, but the company asked if he’d like to participate in a Super Bowl-themed ceremony where they’ll present him with a comically sized cardboard check.
“I told them I wanted it. How many chances do you get to receive a giant cardboard check?”
He plans to bring it out next year during his 2010 draft. Speaking of, next year’s pot for the Fantasy Football Players Championship spikes to $100,000, a pot that Mrs. Metter might like even better.
Still his take this year is nothing to sneeze at .
Metter, a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley, played in 11 leagues this year and actually estimates that he made around $85,000 total. Despite his windfall, he still wouldn’t recommend Fantasy football as an investment option.
“Only do it if you love it,” he said.
First Published: Jan 15, 2010 1:13 PM CDT
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