Oregon Ballhawks (John)

Hi all - My name is John Hodgins and I just completed my 75th year on this planet back in August. In fact, I'm one of the dinosaurs of this crazy game we play!

I live in the Oregon hills outside of a small town named Cottage Grove. Actually, I'm a former member of RW back in '15/'16. Sadly, I had to back away from fantasy football back in 2017 due to an insane 'real' event in my life. Which then led to a few years of chaos. Short and sweet (not so sweet actually:( my wife and I were the victims of an armed home invasion with a swat team rescue! Which led to about 18 months on the road as we awaited the trial for our attacker. He finally copped to all the charges and was put away for 22 years.

As far as my fantasy story, I have been involved in fantasy football since the 80s when we used to draft at a favorite pub or sometimes at one of our league member's homes. We would come to the draft with our dog-eared fantasy mags and a load full of hubris!
No internet back then, so during the season we had to wait for Monday's sports page in the local newspaper to find out how our players did on Sunday and if we had won or lost...or if we had a chance to catchup on MNF!

One of my long-standing leagues has been around for a while. Since the early '90s. As a matter of fact, we will be entering our 30th season together this year with most of our founding members still with us after all these years!
I took the title in '19 and almost repeated the next season but still won my conference. We call ourselves the Survivors Fantasy League in case anyone wants to take a look on MFL.
Before the internet we would draft by conference call, which gave us a chance to interact as a group and shoot the breeze. I kinda miss those days...

I recently received an invite to Roster Wars from Tyler Coney who is a league mate on our UDE2 dynasty salary league. Which then brought back memories from 5/6 years ago with RW. Mostly I've been a keeper/dynasty league guy on MFL but also enjoy a good redraft challenge occasionally:) And I know I'll find a great experience to go along with a great challenge here at Roster Wars!!

On a normal basis, I spend maybe 5 or 6 hours a week during the offseason looking at possible deals with my league mates or researching the free-agent market. During the season, I'm even more involved in league activity and making moves.

Hopefully I'll make the cut to be placed in another Roster Wars league full of fantasy football freaks just like me:) Dynasty or Redraft...I'm up for the challenge!

Welcome John! I thought I recognized the old team name from the RWTC!

Welcome John, glad you found your way here again.... is place will have grown since you were here last.

Welcome to Roster Wars John!

Welcome! Great intro.

Welcome (back) John! Find some threads that look interesting and make yourself at home. Oh yeah, and read the bylaws and ask any questions you may have.

Welcome John. I just moved to Florence in May. This is a pretty nice state south of Portland. Your sig says California. Did you recently move as well? It's good to have you here at Roster Wars.

Welcome back John! Glad to have you!

Welcome John!

Welcome John or should that say Welcome back !   Jump in and enjoy the threads and acquaint yourself with the bylaws.

Welcome John ...

Welcome back John!

Great to have you back on board John! Great time to join roster wars!

Welcome Aboard John.  You're real life event is totally crazy and scary as hell.    Glad he was put away for a while.  I just can't imagine the emotional toll something like that can cause.  Anyway, welcome back to RW.  By the way, being a fellow Hawk, I like the team name.  

Welcome John. Crazy story glad you and your family survived that ordeal.

Welcome back man, that story is something, holy cow. I cant imagine how that must have been or the stress during that whole time waiting for it to be resolved. Glad that it worked out and is behind you.

Look forward to hearing more about you.

Boy, glad you and your wife survived that ordeal and the loser got locked up. As others have said, visit often and get acclimated to this place. Being active and participating will get you everywhere.

Welcome John, from one newbie to another(kind of I guess), if you have questions I’m probably not your guy yet.  If you want to explore together let me know!

F5 to put a face to the name.

Welcome John! Nice you have made your way back to RW.

Welcome John!

Welcome, John. Love the fantasy football history. Glad you and your wife made it through that nasty ordeal.

Welcome back John!

Thanks to all for the warm welcome  I've been goin' round and round the the Roster Wars Universe from A>Z since I showed up almost 2 hours ago. I decided I would need to copy the forum and league rules into this great note app I found recently. That way I can do a search anytime I have a question or need to search for something quickly.
At my age, I can use all the help I can get

Anyhows, I already feel like one of the gang with all the nice welcome backs from y'all Straight up tho...I haven't been a forum poster much except for some on FBG forum over the years. Don't do facebook and only use twitter for fantasy football updates and insights. But I'm thinkin' that if I can't keep up with the minimum number of posts with me being retired and most of you working full-time jobs...then I'm over the hill.
But since that ain't true, I'm gonna give RW the best I got!

What is your NFL team?

You got this John! Once you get rolling on a topic, 30 posts per month is a breeze.

Morrison Minions wrote:

Welcome John. I just moved to Florence in May. This is a pretty nice state south of Portland. Your sig says California. Did you recently move as well? It's good to have you here at Roster Wars.

Hey Shawn Thanks for the welcome. Must be nice living on the coast in Florence. We looked around for places on the coast a couple of years ago but weren't able to find a place. I grew up swimming in the ocean mostly off of the Santa Cruz coast back in the day.

So yeah we used to live in the Cali Sierras back before we were attacked in our home. We were relocated to Oregon after those 18 months on the road and wound living in a 50+yr old mobile on a hill outside of Cottage Grove which is 20 miles south of Eugene. We're not far away from each other

Alaska Arsenic wrote:

You got this John!  Once you get rolling on a topic, 30 posts per month is a breeze.

...just a follow-up to Ghoji; when I first came snooping around, had the same concern. Andy just said to treat it like you're having a conversation at the bar, with friends of like interest.

Has worked out ok, some months more than others, but never really worry about the 30 posts anymore, just seems to happen.

Good to have you back John...

The 30 posts do end up coming easy if you check in every day. As Ghoji said, all it takes is one topic or good debate and you can put a major dent in your total in an hour.

Welcome, John! The only time I've been in Oregon is when my friend got married close to Mount Hood. Pretty place! Looked like the fuckin Sound of Music.

Maplewood Doppelgangers wrote:

What is your NFL team?

49ers > ever since I somehow called them to win their first SB back in '82 before the season had started.
I really liked the direction the club was headed back then and became an instant Ronnie Lott fan. In fact, that's where my ballhawks moniker came from with my email address being ballhawkr42@gmail.com. The man was a missile aimed at the ball or ballcarrier at all times on the field! But Lott also had a heart of gold!

My granddaughter was born with cancer, and we discovered it when she was 9 months old. She was saved by St.Judes Hospital in San Fran at that early age and we became longtime members of a local hospital group called ROCK (recreational opportunities for cancer kids).
Each year they held an event for the cancer kids at Great America and that's where I came to understand what Ronnie really loved in life. That was cancer children and their families who needed love and someone to care. You could just see it in his eyes and how he focused on each child as if they were his own. I would just watch him for hours and never care about making my presence known to him. Although we would have a moment together after the line of his admirers came to an end.

And so now you all know the real true Ronnie Lott...missile to the ball on the field and a sweetheart of a guy off of it!

So just wondering if y'all are involved with fantasy playoff action on RW?

Golden State Lions wrote:

So just wondering if y'all are involved with fantasy playoff action on RW?

Take a look around the rest of the forums, we've got a bunch of different sections on the homepage.

Tenafly Vipers wrote:

Welcome, John! The only time I've been in Oregon is when my friend got married close to Mount Hood. Pretty place! Looked like the fuckin Sound of Music.

                                                                                                   

Another question > Is there a way for me to change my team's name from my previous Golden State Lions to my current name of Oregon Ballhawks? Or is that done behind the scenes?

Golden State Lions wrote:

Another question > Is there a way for me to change my team's name from my previous Golden State Lions to my current name of Oregon Ballhawks? Or is that done behind the scenes?

I sent you an email about it, but I believe it's a behind the scenes thing.

Thanks for the story on Ronnie Lott, very cool! I've been to Oregon twice and absolutely love it out there. I have family that lives in Longview, WA so we fly into Portland and then drive up. Astoria is a really neat city, but I grew up a Goonies kid, so I suppose it was going to be cool regardless. Being in the landscape profession, the natural landscape and soils are second to none and a definite draw for me.

Welcome back John- You better not be a packer fan.

The End.

Welcome John 

I changed your username, John.
Do you want the followthyinstincts email or the one you mentioned above tied to this site? If people try to email directly from here, which one do you want it to go to?

From one John to another John, I Welcome you with open arms (including John Mclean).

Awesome story about Ronnie Lott. I was always a fan from his rookie year to twilight years with The Raiders. Now I'm even a bigger fan after that awesome story.

via GIPHY

9er's fan.. Love it.. HY and myself also follow the Quest for Six.

I've been to Oregon a few times myself, gorgeous up there, absolutely love it. Also a fellow Goonie, Astoria was an amazing place to visit. Soo many movies filmed there, some I never would have thought of (Kindergarten Cop).. We even got pictures inside the jail cell, with the jeep with the bullet holes, it was too bad that the current residents of the Goonies house doesn't want anyone driving near it, but I get it.

Holla if you got any questions, good to have you

Welcome back John.

Great story about Lott. Also one of my all time favorite players.

Ronnie Lott...hell yeah!!

Welcome John.

Hey John, I'm sure a lot has changed over the past few years since you been here but glad all is well in your life.

And shoutout to Tyler for bringing you over, glad to have you

Welcome back John

Minnesota Eternals wrote:

I changed your username, John.  
Do you want the followthyinstincts email or the one you mentioned above tied to this site? If people try to email directly from here, which one do you want it to go to?

Hey Andy Thanks for the name change.
My email is now ballhawkr42@gmail.com > although I continue to always follow my instincts:)

Hey guys and gals

I'd like to take this moment to celebrate that I got so many friendly welcome backs from y'all
So, as I'm sittin' here watchin' my niners dominate their rival cowboys, I took the time to take a look at all of your pics and posts again. And after counting 31 of ya!...I just thought I'd reach out to say thanks again for makin' a guy feel welcome!

Looking forward to competing against some of you in a league or two if I should be fortunate enough to get an invite