“It will be hard to ever replicate the feeling again when it comes to fantasy football.”

Most (all?) of us play fantasy football each year, whether it be with a group of friends, some co-workers or a faceless online community of folks you know only by their message-board handles. Some of us even win some money from time to time.

We probably won’t come close to $250,000, though, which is the amount that caused David Girard to utter the quote at the beginning of this article.

“After 17 years of participating in fantasy football I feel as though I’ve reached my pinnacle and its only downhill from here,” Girard said after winning the inaugural grand prize at RapidDraft.com.

Of course, Girard has no plans to quit playing fantasy football, a hobby in which he has participated since 1993, when he was a junior at Kansas State and scoring was done by hand with the sports page and a notebook. He, like most fantasy players, said that the joy of winning and the bragging rights held over leaguemates are the real motivators for competing in fantasy. Girard even said that his experience of once finishing second in a $250-entry, winner-take-all league soured him on the “big-money” format.

“I’ve learned that playing fantasy football for the thrill of the win and the bragging rights, not the money, is what drives me,” Girard said. “When I entered the RapidDraft contest, I saw it as a cool way to play fantasy football. I never dreamed it would turn into a ‘big-money’ ordeal.”

Girard, who sat in second place by a mere half-point heading into the NFL’s just-completed Week 16, said he couldn’t even bear to watch the afternoon contests this past Sunday.

“I checked the stats often and even ruled myself out of the contest when I saw (Chad) Ochocinco and (Jermichael) Finley had one catch between them heading into halftime of the early games,” he said. “The only game I watched that day was the Sunday night game with Dallas. At that point I didn’t know exactly what Romo needed for me to win, but I knew it was well within reason that he could score enough to do the job. Obviously at this point I feel inclined to join a Tony Romo fan club or something.”

Girard, who co-owns a small grocery store in Kansas with his brother, said that Finley was a key player in his title run and that some early-round luck paid off as well.

“Going into the draft I remember thinking I wanted to land two top wide receivers with my first two picks considering it was a ppr league,” he said. “My hope was that they would be Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson and Moss as the next choice. As destiny would have it Fitz went (one slot before mine), so I went with Johnson and then Moss went shortly after that leaving me staring at Chris Johnson in the second round. Luckily I didn’t pass him up.

Girard, like many a fantasy owner playing in point-per-reception formats this season, said that Ray Rice was another central piece of his championship.

“To get an everyweek stud running back in round 6 doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “The other pick that stands out to me was getting Finley in the 19th round. Most of the year he floundered around on my bench. Thankfully I held onto him and that led to probably the one lineup decision that won the contest for me.”

Girard said the victory is too fresh for him to have made plans for the money yet but that most of it will probably wind up in college funds for his four children. He also said he might try to leverage this win into some involvement with the fantasy sports industry.

Whatever happens on those fronts, though, the one thing that Girard can count on is his wife’s “new appreciation” for the hobby.

“Something makes me think that fantasy football won’t be such a ‘waste of time’ from now on.”

(Note: World Fantasy Games owns and operates RapidDraft and FSB.com.)

Jeffrey Thomas, CEO of World Fantasy Games (owner of FantasySportsBusiness.com), is a 17-year veteran of the fantasy sports industry. Here’s what he had to say about Fidelity firing four employees for running fantasy football leagues:

This situation and decision by Fidelity is ridiculous on many levels. I think the executives that made the call should be personally terminated for creating a huge future lawsuit risk for Fidelity itself, for very poor research and very poor decision-making.

First, playing in a fantasy sports league is not gambling. Most of the time there is no money involved at all, so it can’t be gambling. And other times, leagues only pay a fee for software services to operate the league.

Second, if they had a fun $20 side pool between league members, this is personal and not managed by a fantasy company. Fantasy football is not gambling when it is managed by experienced, compliant companies in our industry. Could these individuals have been gambling by wagering $20 between friends? What’s your call? I hope nobody, in this company of thousands of employees, filled out a March Madness pool last year and I hope nobody ever made a copy of a March Madness bracket on a company copy machine … and I hope nobody sent an email with a bracket attached to it or a link imbedded. And did they buy any squares at Super Bowl time? I’m sure e-mail archives from last February or March could shed light on this. For clarification to Fidelity and others … the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 states that money spent on fantasy sports is not a bet or a wager.

Third, the information published to date states that the individuals involved did not receive e-mails at work. A league member sent him an instant message? Did he read this while taking a restroom break, or was it during a strategic planning meeting? Does it matter? Reading a message from a friend is not playing fantasy football. Was he managing his team at work? Playing fantasy football is managing your team — starting players, benching players, watching live scoring, negotiating trades, studying free agent moves, etc. Sending an instant message is not playing fantasy football. He was communicating with a friend.

Fourth, on a similar note, did other employees receive texts that day from friends or family members? Did they use the phone for personal phone calls? What is the real issue here? Communication occurs every day between employees and friends while at the work place. It should be limited, but it’s not grounds for termination.

Fifth, the individual involved stated that several other company employees play in fantasy leagues. Why single out these four? For an instant message? Corporate hypocrisy at its best can get corporate decision-makers and their employer in a lot of trouble.

That’s my top five, but there are plenty of other issues with the terminations. Based on the incredibly ignorant termination decision, I hope the employees will be filing a significant lawsuit in the coming weeks.

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– There’s swimming in the mainstream, and then there’s cracking the NPR news lineup. A quick piece in the technology portion of NPR’s All Things Considered on Monday afternoon discussed the increase in female fantasy football players — including sound bytes from FSTA president Paul Charchian.

– Our own Jeff Thomas, CEO of World Fantasy Games, will join representatives from two other Wisconsin-based game companies on Sept. 22 for a panel discussion on the health of the industry in their state.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

Name: Rod Smith
Nickname: Rocket
Job title(s): CEO - Helping Hands for Freedom; Founder & President - Future for Kids; President - Fantasy4Charity.com
Age: 43
Education: BA in Business Administration - University of Nebraska
Family status: Single
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football, both college and pro
Favorite team (any sport): Denver Broncos
All-time favorite athlete (other than yourself): John Elway, and my High School Quarterback, Loren Snyder
Years playing fantasy: 13

Three questions

1) How long has this project/partnership been in development? How did the idea come about?

Helping Hands for Freedom is a start up national charity that I founded in December of 2008. After 18 years of serving communities throughout the country and raising over 5.5 million dollars, the nature of fundraising in this economy for non-profits has me feeling like I have no idea what I am doing.

The traditional way of building a charity through building a board and relying on their circle of influence, creating signature event(s) such as a golf tournament, and submitting grant request to multiple sources, is far more difficult than ever before.

I had to think “out-of-the-box” and took to the internet for research. I found a story about how President Obama successfully generated donations from college students. He was able to convince college students to donate $10 a month for multiple months that generated millions of dollars for his presidential campaign. He truly revolutionized the art of fund development. This led to the question, “How can I get millions of people to give Helping Hands for Freedom $10 each?”

As I continued my research on the internet, I came across a story about the continued growth of Fantasy Sports and that the industry has now reached over 33 million participants. This was the “niche” I was looking for.

2) How did Ricky Williams’ involvement come about, and do you have any particular details about what we should expect to see from him going forward?

I met Ricky through a friend of mine in San Diego, Renie Colwell. She works with him regarding his off field endeavors and after sharing with him the idea to help military children who have lost their fathers to the war through a fantasy football game, Ricky actually offered to help and be a part of the venture. He has been a part of designing the logo and reviewing the content for the website and has his own ideas on marketing the RapidDraft game through Fantasy4Charity. Being from San Diego and understanding the plight of military families due to Camp Pendleton and the large population of service members living there, he plans on being as active as his busy football life will allow him to be through interviews, blogging, Twittering and some appearances in Miami.

3) How much of the proceeds will be making it to the families you serve?

Our partners in this project, Jeff Thomas of World Fantasy Games, and Jay Jacobs of the Shurn Group have made great sacrifices in helping us contain the cost of the venture to make sure as much of the money raised goes to supporting the military families facing injury and loss and building a national mentorship program for military children. Our goal is to operate at a high standard of 80 percent of money raised going towards serving our mission with the remaining 20 percent going to the administration and fundraising expenses of the organization.

Bonus: Most of us will never experience settling under a Division I or NFL punt and preparing for a return. Can you tell us a bit about what that was like?

Punt returning is all about instincts in the open field, setting up your blockers, and trusting your teammates. Oh, and speed doesn’t hurt. I just always had a knack for it. In High School I had 12 returns for touchdowns. In one game, I had 2 punt returns and 2 kickoff returns for touchdowns. In 1986, I led the nation in punt returns, and when I left Nebraska, I was the all-time leading career and single-season average punt returner. I was just very confident and fearless, which is a good combination to have when 235lb linebackers are running down to knock you out. There is nothing better than clearing that last guy and cruising into the end zone with the entire stadium on their feet and cheering.