Who: Howard Kamen
What: Partnership Editor, USA Today; member, FSTA board of directors

So, what’s a partnership editor? Does he handle the wedding, engagement and anniversary announcements? Is he in charge of making sure everyone in the news room works well together?

Actually, it means that Howard Kamen is the point person regarding all the content for USA Today products that isn’t produced in-house. He seeks out and recommends opportunities for the company, handles the contract work with outside content providers and works as the “intermediary” between those providers and the various editorial and other departments. Along with the daily paper, this means overseeing work for USAToday.com, the IT and design departments and Sports Weekly.

Although it doesn’t allow him to share in the joy of those announcing their engagements, it does sound like a pretty good way to combine training and experience in journalism and law.

“I actually wanted to be a sports agent and went to law school with that in mind,” Kamen says. “However, after a pair of paid internships — one at a very small sports representation firm and another at an extremely large athletic management company — I realized representing athletes wasn’t for me. I didn’t mind the contract/endorsement work, but the recruitment aspect was, shall we say, a bit ethically challenging for me.”

Rather than go the Jerry Maguire route, the graduate of University of Virginia and Catholic University law school joined Sports Business Daily as a staff writer for about a year before landing at USA Today in the sports department for the website.

Kamen spent about 11 and a half years roaming around that department, beginning as a content developer before overseeing the Major League Baseball content for a while and then spending a little more than half of his dot-com stint as deputy managing editor. That role involved him in the oversight of the department’s daily operations and introduced him to the partnership work that has now become his central focus.

In addition to his other duties in the sports department, Kamen was in charge of fantasy coverage before taking over his latest position. That work included overseeing partnerships with fantasy content providers and even pitching and co-writing the paper’s fantasy football column for a while.

“I’ve always thought we had such potential,” Kamen says. “Probably anyone who started playing fantasy sports in the ’80s or early ’90s used the USA TODAY sports section to crunch their stats by hand, right? But, despite our efforts otherwise, we kind of let the ESPNs, CBSs and Yahoos of the world slip past us.”

Kamen says that his efforts, along with those of some of his colleagues, have helped to turn things around.

“Our sports department now has a fantasy sports desk with a designated fantasy sports editor and a staff of writers,” he says. “Plus, we’ve made some solid strategic partnerships, including a new radio deal for (hopefully) a nationally syndicated fantasy sports program, to enhance our presence in the space.”

If he seems to talk about the fantasy stuff passionately, it’s because he has played, loved and been involved with the games for years. Kamen traces his participation in fantasy baseball and football back about 20 years and puts himself among that aforementioned group of players who had to scan the sports pages and score their leagues by hand. Today’s league commissioners should think twice before complaining about the hassles of running a league. No matter how often your leaguemates whine about the fairness of trades, at least you don’t have to mail out the weekly scores and transaction reports the old-fashioned way.

Kamen doesn’t just remember those days of fantasy, he can trace a direct link via a baseball league and a football league that he says have been running since the late 1980s. In addition to his eight leagues between those two sports, Kamen has branched out over the years.

“I’ve expanded my participation to include the usual suspects: fantasy NBA, NHL, NASCAR and golf,” he says, noting that baseball remains the most rewarding because of the length of the season and the amount of knowledge necessary to win. “I’ve also been a member of a fantasy ACC basketball league for the last 10-plus years with a group of friends from school.

“And now that we’re all getting a little older with families, some of us … have formed a pair of parent-kid leagues — one baseball and one football — where the parents and kids compete against each other.”

Although fantasy is no longer part of his duties at USA Today, Kamen has managed to stay involved in the industry. In February, he was elected to the board of directors for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.

“I believe the FSTA — and what it stands for — has great promise, and I wanted to be a part of shaping the direction of this growing industry,” he says.

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– Montreal-based iPerceptions found in a study that text advertisements still fare the best among online consumers and that less-affluent Web surfers are more likely to click through.

– Fantasy site owners could find a lesson or two in how to market via social networks or how to sell such a setup to potential advertisers by reading about how some top global brands are leveraging the hottest new medium.

– “FSTA Frontline” is a new newsletter from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.

– In an interview with Men’s Fitness, Yahoo Sports’ Ashley Russell says women in her fantasy football league fought fiercely on their first draft night a year ago.

– Is the NHL dooming itself to a future of relative obscurity, or should it just embrace its market and cater to it better? Two Hartford Courant reporters square off with the opening of the new season.

– Skyrocketing travel costs for college sports teams could threaten some programs and alter the schedules for announcing championship playoff brackets.

In case you missed it Sunday, Tom Brady suffered a torn left ACL when Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard’s helmet hit his knee.

Also, there’s a presidential election scheduled for some time this year.

It goes without saying that everyone involved with fantasy football has been thinking about, writing about and grieving for the loss since about 1:15 Sunday afternoon. Are we taking this a little too seriously, though.

Actually, according to CNBC’s Darren Rovell, we might not be taking it seriously enough. Rovell — working with numbers provided by Jeff Thomas, Fantasy Sports Trade Association president and founder and CEO of World Sports Technology Inc., which owns this site — reports that Sunday’s knee injury for the ages will ultimately mean a shift of $150 million in fantasy winnings this season.

That amount doesn’t even take into account the potential effect of Brady’s injury on his receivers, the team’s running backs, the defense and opponents who won’t have to worry about scoring as many points to have a chance against the Patriots.

No matter what the dollar figures end up being, no one can argue that the torn ACL suffered in Foxborough on Sunday completely altered the 2008 fantasy landscape.

Who: Dan Cypra
What: Vice President of Marketing at FantasyFanatics.com; member of FSTA board of directors

Some people actually have to work for a living. Others are Dan Cypra.

“I wouldn’t trade what I do for anything,” he says. Why would he?

In his role with Fantasy Fanatics, Cypra is charged with trying to advance the business interests of a website that specializes in fantasy sports content. When he’s not doing that, he’s generating content for and generally helping to keep up PocketFives.com (an online poker forum) and its related sites. On Saturdays, he’s working the press box and post-game media room at football games for his alma mater, Vanderbilt University. (He carries out similar duties for men’s basketball games as well.)

Fantasy sports, poker and his school’s games. For most guys, that’s a list of hobbies or pastimes, not a résumé.

Of course, it would be unfair and untrue to say that Cypra spends his time playing around. The truth seems to be quite the opposite. He is carving out a decent-sized niche for himself just a few years out of college by getting involved in a variety of things. The work ethic and knack for putting himself out there dates back to his early college days.

“I walked into the media relations department at [Vanderbilt] in 1999, when I was a freshman, … and asked if they needed help in the press box on game days,” Cypra says. “I’m still involved to this day. It’s been a great experience and something that has been extremely rewarding.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree in economics in 2002, Cypra finished up a master’s of business administration in 2003 and moved into the entertainment and tourism industry. In 2006, he was contacted by some college friends who had launched Pocket Fives and asked to come aboard to help build out the site. Cypra took charge of the marketing and media relations branches of the fledgling business, building them from scratch.

Around the same time, one of the guys who launched Pocket Fives, Cal Spears, also asked Cypra about joining the staff of Fantasy Fanatics, which launched in 2007. Now he stands as the site’s marketing director and co-owner.

“It was an opportunity to expand what I do in the sports world to a business level,” Cypra says. “Plus, there aren’t many opportunities out there that come along where you follow sports for a living. It was an opportunity that I could not pass up.”

Following the launch of Fantasy Fanatics, Cypra says he immediately looked to dive into the industry, and the opportunity presented itself for him to join the board of directors with the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. The opportunity came by way of FSTA president Jeff Thomas, who is also the owner and CEO of World Sports Technology, which owns this site.

“When it was time to call for nominations for the new FSTA board in 2007, I contacted a few people personally that were outgoing, aggressive and had skills that could transfer well to the board,” Thomas says. “Based on meeting Dan personally and talking to him on the phone several times, I knew he could be a valuable board member.”

Cypra submitted his name for consideration and was voted in from a pool of applicants. In the time since, he has played a key role in a new public relations committee that Thomas credits with improving communication both with members and the corporate world.

Of course, all this about work, marketing and business shouldn’t give the impression that fun and the job are separate. At their base, Cypra’s ventures require him to track and understand games, and the fantasy portion hasn’t decreased his passion.

From what he says, the opposite seems true: “I can’t get enough of fantasy football.”