Name: Justin Cleveland
Nickname: JC
Job title(s): Association Manager
Full-time in fantasy? Yes
Age: 28
Education: master’s in Communication Arts and Sciences from Penn State
Family status: Single
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football (Draft-style)
Favorite sport to watch: Football (Pro first, college second, XFL a distant third)
Favorite team (any sport): Green Bay Packers
All-time favorite athlete: Jim Brown
Years playing fantasy: 11

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I attended the August, 2007 FSTA Conference in Las Vegas.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: Finishing dead last in the FSTA Fantasy Football Experts League.

Three questions

1. How did your role with the FSTA come about?
When I was finishing up grad school, I was looking for jobs and came across the FSTA when they were looking for their first association manager. Being a big fantasy sports fan, I decided to check it out and sent in my résumé. I talked with Jeff Thomas, George del Prado and the board about the position and then flew out to the FSTA Conference in Las Vegas in 2007 and met with everyone.

When I tell people that the FSTA conference is a great place to network and get deals done, I speak from experience. I went out to meet everyone and found the industry professionals engaging and open, willing to speak about the industry and their vision for it going forward.

2. Anyone who has attended an FSTA conference in the past couple of years has heard your bad jokes between sessions and seen you hustle around with the microphone for questions. Can you describe what else you do as FSTA manager?
You lead with bad jokes? I work for months on those jokes. I may have to reevaluate my strategy. My essential job is twofold: working to expand the FSTA membership-assisting in acquisition and retention-and helping to organize the conferences. As to the first, I work with membership concerns including how to find and qualify a programmer, how to obtain merchant services (a surprising challenge even with clear case law on the industry’s side differentiating it from gambling) and locating particular bits of research. That is just skimming the surface but gives you a general idea of what I do on a daily basis.

As far as the conferences go, I’m involved in every aspect of putting the show together, from site selection (though Brett Baker at Fantasy Coverage has been instrumental in the Chicago shows since he’s local) down to stuffing name badges (extra special thanks to Danielle MacLean for volunteering her nametag-stuffing prowess in Chicago). The conferences are, essentially, my baby and most of the work has been done by the time the show runs around, I just have to make sure they run smoothly. And that involves the aforementioned microphone hustling.

I work with all of the different committees as they require (writing and distributing press releases, talking to reporters about the industry, adding content to the website, helping organize the awards categories and voting, etc). I’m a Jack of all trades, so to speak, when it comes to the FSTA. I essentially have to keep abreast of everything that is happening in the industry and what might potentially be of interest to our members and keep them in the loop.

3. How has your role changed during your stint with the association? How has that been impacted by changes to the industry itself?
My job really hasn’t changed from day one-the mandate was to help the association grow and develop the conferences, along with taking care of the day-to-day operations of the association (helping with the research, PR, awards, etc). That’s what I do.

When people ask what I do for a living, I have to lead with “I work for a non-profit association doing research, conference planning, and PR.” If I lead with “I work for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association” I get blank stares or the dreaded “You play fantasy football for a living?”

The one aspect that has developed more in the past year is the amount of knowledge I need to have on legal rulings and potential legislative impacts. Of course Glenn Colton has been a fantastic resource to help set me on the right path, but I have spent a good amount of time reading legal briefs from related cases and studying up on case law to be able to hold an informed opinion.

The summary is: The job is the same, if the minutia has changed how I go about it.

As we reported last night, 17 candidates are up for election to five spots on the board of directors for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. As you might have noticed, four of those people are board incumbents. That might lead one to wonder about the remainder of the current board.

Well, association manager Justin Cleveland informs FSB.com that Paul Charchian (LeagueSafe), Jeff Christiansen (FF Toolbox), Jim Corelis (STATS), Jeff Coruccini (Fantasy Football Starters), Kelly Grogan (Athlon/Grogan’s), Scott Higgins (EchoStar), Howard Kamen (USA Today), Ted Kasten (Advanced Sports Media), Peter Schoenke (RotoWire) and Charlie Wiegert (CDM Sports/Fanball) are in the middle of their terms and not yet up for re-election.

The lone current board member who has decided not to seek another term is Dan Cypra of Fantasy Fanatics.

The new term, which runs for three years, will start on April 1 (and we’re not fooling).

See main story for the list of candidates.

Score another one for fantasy not qualifying as gambling.

Maryland state delegate Democrat John Olszewski has proposed a bill that would allow residents of his states to accept winning cash sums for fantasy sports victories. Currently, the games are lumped in with gambling under state law, leaving Maryland as one of a handful of states in which fantasy players can only compete for free.

“This is an issue where Congress said this isn’t gambling, a vast majority of states allow it, and it seems to make sense to allow Marylanders to have the same opportunity,” Olszewski told The Examiner of Baltimore. “For me, it’s a matter of equity. If people in Virginia and D.C. can play for prizes, why can’t we?”

Good question. The federal Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006 cracked down on payouts from online gambling — and specifically stated that fantasy sports are not gambling.

Although there are some high-stakes leagues and various levels of financial commitment and compensation, fantasy sports are games of skill that most people play for pride and bragging rights first and maybe economic incentives somewhere beyond that.

Here’s hoping not only that the Maryland bill gets adopted, but that it leads to similar measures in similarly restrictive states such as Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and Vermont.

Two brand new fantasy entities were among the four outfits to claim two Fantasy Sports Trade Association awards at this week’s winter business conference, joined by a pair of leaders in fantasy technology.

MyFantasyLeague.com pulled off a big win in the commissioner tool category, knocking off CBS for the first time in the seven-year history of the awards. The fantasy football league-hosting site added top honors in the print ad category to take home two trophies a year after getting shut out.

Mock Draft Central, on the other hand, matched its victory total of two from a year ago with a clean sweep of the draft tool categories. MDC repeated in the draft-style tool category and also won for best draft assistance tool. Those two might seem redundant, but the difference is pretty simple.

“The draft assistance tool is to help out individual players,” FSTA manager Justin Cleveland tells FSB.com. “The draft-style tool is meant for league managers to make the draft better and easier for everyone.”

The first-timers who claimed two titles were LeagueSafe.com and FLW Fantasy Fishing.

LeagueSafe.com is the brainchild of Fanball co-founder Paul Charchian and collects league fees in place of commissioners. That model won it the prizes for best innovation and specialty product/service.

The FLW game stormed onto the scene, gave away the first million-dollar fantasy prize and garnered plenty of attention in a sport that generally doesn’t. That helped win it the award for unique contest, while the ceremony at which FLW Outdoors announced its champion won best live event.

For all of the FSTA winners and finalists, click here.