Who: Steven Lassan
What: College Football Writer, Athlon Sports
To most of the fantasy industry, fantasy college football is quite new. That is certainly not the case for Steven Lassan.
Lassan has played the fantasy college game for more than 10 years and has written about it for almost as long. He began writing about the college game for College Football Digest and Football.com, and then was offered a fantasy gig with FantasyGMs.com. (FantasyGMs.com later combined with ProFantasySports.com, which is now owned by SportsBuff.com. FSB.com falls under the same parent company.)
“The first writing job I had was actually with an NHL site, covering the Nashville Predators on a weekly basis,” Lassan tells FSB.com. “Although covering hockey was fun, college football has always been my favorite sport, and the opportunity to work with a couple of sites … as a college football writer was too good to pass up.”
In his time with Pro Fantasy Sports, Lassan dabbled in more than just the college game. He spent a year working as managing editor and leading the NFL fantasy coverage. The niche that fantasy college football has been, however, has always been his niche, and he covers it with impressive thoroughness.
Whereas writers on the pro beat only have to worry about 32 teams and potentially as few as six or eight players on a team, the top division of college quadruples the pool with 120 teams. It’s hard enough to keep tabs of enough players to successfully work the waiver wire throughout your league’s season, never mind knowing the country well enough to be able to dole out advice on Wyoming or Florida Atlantic.
“This is easily the biggest challenge,” Lassan says. “I read anything I can during the week involving college football. I also read all of the college box scores on Saturday night when the games are completing.
“Injuries are the most difficult aspect of college fantasy, as most teams to do not have to release them like it is done through the NFL. Unfortunately, some things will fall through the cracks if a coach holds it back, but for the most part, I can keep up with the injuries and any depth chart changes.”
Lassan has done it well enough to have worked his way into the hierarchy at Athlon, which is the top seller of sports preview magazines in the country, including one of the most respected college football guides.
Lassan says that there wasn’t much to his beginning with Athlon, that he merely took a chance and had it pay off.
“I really had no lead on a job at Athlon,” Lassan says. “However, I enjoyed reading the magazines every year and decided to e-mail one of the editors to see if they had any work. Although I wasn’t sure if there were any job openings, it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made.”
It’s the old lesson about putting yourself out there. Lassan knew what he liked to do, figured out a company for which he’d like to do it and took a chance. Now he enjoys a growing profile in an area of fantasy whose profile is quickly growing as well.
The fantasy college game is so new that the folks at Athlon didn’t even know about it when Lassan arrived. They quickly embraced the subject, though, and now feature it as part of their overall college football coverage.
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