2011
A couple of weeks ago Charlie Robertson dropped the bombshell that he was quitting the AFL after this season. People leaving the AFL isn’t that shocking. Getting fed up with the league after 19 years isn’t really a revelation either (trust me, I often get fed up with this league as well). Getting an email from a guy you’ve been friends with almost 30 years stating he’s quitting your league, complete with the “it’s not you it’s me” breakup rhetoric…yeah, that’s a kick in the pills. Luckily, I’m an avid viewer of reality television so I know that no matter how much you respect or like a person, at the end of the day, human nature means they are always going to disappoint you.
Charlie is a guy I look up to definitely like an older brother, hell, maybe even a father figure. He’s just enough older than me that I’ve always been see how he handled life’s complexities…getting married, having children, toenail grooming…okay, maybe not the toenail grooming, but the other stuff, definitely. So despite my appeal to stay, he is electing to move on. Nineteen years of running the AFL has taught me you have to let people move on when they want to. I’ve talked people in to staying and really it’s a no win because winning this thing is difficult and anything other than that and the person is likely miserable.
I would be remiss though if I didn’t search the AFL archives (my brain) about some of Charlie greatest contributions and moments for the AFL. Here’s a look at the 10 best (in no order by the way)…
1. Launch – We started the AFL in 1993 and he was a key guy in getting it going. His love of gambling, football and even fantasy football led me to start my own league since the others we had been in to that point had been disappointing. He helped me establish the rules and even wrote the first schedule. It all sounds so simple now, but in 1993 there was no internet, no fantasy guides. I tried writing a 12-team/14 game schedule myself but I couldn’t get it to work out. I kept having a couple of teams not playing each other. Charlie broke out an old college math book and utilized that to write the schedule we still used today. He split the cost of the AFL trophy with me and even served as Commissioner for me for the B Conference when we started it in 1995.
2. Up and Running – Managing a 48-team league with over 40 owners is a challenge. Controversies come up no matter how hard you plan. Ultimately, I need to make a decision that impacts two people…often one positively and one negatively. I never did this without leaning on my old bud Charlie to give me some guidance. Even if I thought I was thinking things through, I needed him to make sure I was on the right track when I made a decision.
3. The Season of Pain – There might not be a better AFL moment than the final six weeks of a season in the early 2000s when Charlie, who was sitting at the bottom of the barrel in his division, declared it his “season of pain” in which he would right the ship and take over the division leader the Greyhounds. Larry was all over him talking trash. It got to the point with 4 weeks to go where Larry would have to lose every game, Charlie would have to win every game, and the other two teams in the division would have to alternate winning and losing so they didn’t end up above Charlie in the standings. As Charlie lined out what was going to happen and it started too…Larry’s playful ribbing (I would say he was in denial early on) turned to anger…then in the final week he just quit posting (acceptance) as everything Charlie stated did happen and he overtook Larry in the final week.
4. The Nelda Draft – One year Charlie couldn’t make the draft so he had Nelda from my work draft for him. He about shit when he heard what his team was. The funny thing is that was like 10 years ago and I’m not sure his team ever fully recovered from that.
5. Whisking Cheetos – Charlie once got so mad at Cecil on the PIT, he accused him of sitting around his computer all day, “whisking” Cheetos crumbs off his chest and continually hitting refresh to see if anything new was out there.
6. Stranger in the Alps – When we started the Big Lebowski league last year, Charlie came up with the name Stranger in the Alps from a story he heard the Cohen brothers talking about in regard to the movie. Apparently when the overdubbed the movie for TV the changed the line where Goodman is smashing the car from “(censored…watch the movie to see the actual line)” to “see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps,” which has no tie-in at all to the original line. It’s just funny because it’s so random. When he told that story at draft night I knew we had a winner in that new AFL offering.
7. Down Goes Friedmeyer – When we first started the AFL when didn’t have the stats we have access to today. We had a box score in the paper. Because we didn’t know if a recovered fumble was an offensive player or a defender, and we hadn’t yet started including special teams, the only “defensive” scores we counted were interception returns for TDs. The most obnoxious guy in the league had won the first AFL season. It looked like he was going to run away with the second one going in to the Monday night game. We were playing cards at my house and Charlie and I wouldn’t even let the guy watch the game because he had a 10 point lead and the only thing his competitor had was Dallas’ defense. We never had anyone get 2 TDs in a game that year…in fact, we only had like 5 defensive TDs all year. As the card game broke up we flipped on the TV and see the game just ending, Dallas has won, and they are interviewing a defensive player. Charlie and I laugh and think what if they got 2 TDs. I get a call about an hour later…sure enough, it did happen…and a new era began in the AFL.
8. Charlie Meets Jim Kelly – During Jim’s prime in Buffalo, Charlie ran in to Jim Kelly while on vacation. He got to spend a few moments talking fantasy football. Talking the AFL with a Super Bowl QB…it felt like Kramer breaking through to popular culture in the episode of Seinfeld when he starts the Kramer Reality Tour.
9. “Dickhead!” – At the draft a few years back Charlie called Cobras Jim a dickhead…nothing personal, for Charlie it’s almost a term of endearment. Jim, not being from “Charlie’s World” really struggled with a guy who really doesn’t know him referring to him as a dickhead. It really made for a funny season as we rehashed that moment again-and-again.
10. Draft Night – The AFL draft night will never be the same. Whether it was a personal jab, an instant evaluation of a pick, arguing with Larry, or just a plain wisecrack, Charlie was a major part of the “fun quotient” of the league.
There’s definitely no replacing a guy who has contributed this much to the league. In fact, it’s shakes you so much you have to evaluate whether to continue. While the AFL won’t go on forever, I think we’ve got something strong enough here to continue on even in his absence.
While I’m guessing in five years Charlie and I will have our friendship reduced to the occasional awkward run-in at the grocery store (see any number of the previous owners who have bolted before him), it doesn’t mean I won’t miss that SOB. In fact, even though the Greenwings are in the A Conference with me, I’m pulling for the guy. I hope he extends his final season in the AFL all the way to a Super Bowl championship. Nothing would make me happier than the AFL paying back a little to the guy who has done so much for us.
Good luck Charlie…go Greenwings!
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