I have two huge stand-out experiences in my first few months here in the league so far: my ISFL draft night and winning my first award in S24.
I had a great time being a part of the S22 ISFL draft class. There was a lot of buzz and media leading up to the draft given the historical size and activity present with the class. Having a few seasons of experience now as a scout in both the DSFL and ISFL, I really miss that experience of getting scouted. As a prospect there are so many endless possibilities for the future of your player's career at that point. I created a long media post about my potential draft destinations, grading them all as I went. I learned a lot about all of the teams in the process of writing that article and I learned a lot about what I wanted and what was possible with my player. Probably the best thing that came out of the article is that I called out several of the ISFL teams which had yet to reach out to me for scouting, spurring those teams to reach out, including Laser, the GM for the Orange County Otters. Some part of our conversation and my time exploring and learning more about that team drew me to them. I hadn't specifically said it to anyone, hell I hadn't even admitted it to myself, but I really wanted to become an Otter. I created a signature for my player in the couple of days before the draft in anticipation of finding my new ISFL team. I made sure to mark clearly the layers that would need to be edited so that I could quickly swap in the colors and branding for whichever team I ended up going to, but in order to properly test the swap, I used the OCO branding as the default. I guess I probably should've known then it was destined to be.
Since S23 I've been the team rep for Orange County on the awards committee. I've learned a lot in these 3 seasons working with other reps to create the nominee lists that we send to GMs and HO for their votes. I've nearly pulled my hair out too. As a member of the committee, I want to send the best nominees possible regardless of team, but I also understand that as my team's rep, I need to represent the Otters that have had deserving performances every season. Balancing a desire to fight for my teammates and a need to make the best, most unbiased decisions can be difficult at the best of times, and we have systems in place to do that as well as we can. However, having your own player up for different awards adds an extra level of stress. I have to try even harder to come off as unbiased in order to make an effective argument for my player's achievements and it's even more stressful to listen to other reps disagree with putting up your player for an award. Every day leading up to the presentation was stressful. I wasn't hopeful for OPotY or MVP, but I was biting my teeth for RBotY. Having all of that anxiety and anticipation pay off, receiving my first ever award in the ISFL (or DSFL for that matter) was amazing, and I'm so excited to put in the work to rack up even more hardware in the future!
I had a great time being a part of the S22 ISFL draft class. There was a lot of buzz and media leading up to the draft given the historical size and activity present with the class. Having a few seasons of experience now as a scout in both the DSFL and ISFL, I really miss that experience of getting scouted. As a prospect there are so many endless possibilities for the future of your player's career at that point. I created a long media post about my potential draft destinations, grading them all as I went. I learned a lot about all of the teams in the process of writing that article and I learned a lot about what I wanted and what was possible with my player. Probably the best thing that came out of the article is that I called out several of the ISFL teams which had yet to reach out to me for scouting, spurring those teams to reach out, including Laser, the GM for the Orange County Otters. Some part of our conversation and my time exploring and learning more about that team drew me to them. I hadn't specifically said it to anyone, hell I hadn't even admitted it to myself, but I really wanted to become an Otter. I created a signature for my player in the couple of days before the draft in anticipation of finding my new ISFL team. I made sure to mark clearly the layers that would need to be edited so that I could quickly swap in the colors and branding for whichever team I ended up going to, but in order to properly test the swap, I used the OCO branding as the default. I guess I probably should've known then it was destined to be.
Since S23 I've been the team rep for Orange County on the awards committee. I've learned a lot in these 3 seasons working with other reps to create the nominee lists that we send to GMs and HO for their votes. I've nearly pulled my hair out too. As a member of the committee, I want to send the best nominees possible regardless of team, but I also understand that as my team's rep, I need to represent the Otters that have had deserving performances every season. Balancing a desire to fight for my teammates and a need to make the best, most unbiased decisions can be difficult at the best of times, and we have systems in place to do that as well as we can. However, having your own player up for different awards adds an extra level of stress. I have to try even harder to come off as unbiased in order to make an effective argument for my player's achievements and it's even more stressful to listen to other reps disagree with putting up your player for an award. Every day leading up to the presentation was stressful. I wasn't hopeful for OPotY or MVP, but I was biting my teeth for RBotY. Having all of that anxiety and anticipation pay off, receiving my first ever award in the ISFL (or DSFL for that matter) was amazing, and I'm so excited to put in the work to rack up even more hardware in the future!
![[Image: qWest.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/qWest.gif)
