While we wait for our new league to finish adding teams and for rules to get settled, there is one important activity you and your kids can do right away: Name your team.

In the 80+ seasons I have been playing fantasy sports, the naming is a ritual that is steeped in puns and personal backstory. Here's some of my favorite examples from my Reality league:

  • Virginia Wolves
  • San Francisco Fog
  • Odessa Fightin' Octopi
  • Charlotte Brontes
  • Colorado Springs Eternal
  • Manila Ice
  • Springfield Isotopes
  • Macon Whoopie
  • Missouri Loves Company
  • Maine Squeeze (OK, this one is mine)

A few owners have already submitted their names. Feel free to stick with those, or consider coming up with something new. Outside of avoiding offensive references, there are no wrong choices for naming your franchises. I prefer the holism of everyone having a "Location Nickname" format, but it isn't required to do so.

We'll also need a logo to visually reflect that name. This should be 100% done by the kid members of your ownership team (although the adults will likely have to help with the technology to get it into a digital format). Do the logo design after you agree on a name, looking at existing sports or other brand logos for some ideas on how to visualize it. I'm looking for something I can use in any reporting on the web or in PDFs, should I get that ambitious.

Ultimately, what I will need from you are the following:

  1. Your official team name (with or without a location)
  2. A digital version of a team logo (minimum 300 px x 300px)
  3. A brief backstory on why you your team name and logo are what they are

You can post as a reply here, attaching any file(s) you need for the logo. Everyone try to work on this over the next week or so. We'll set a deadline if they are too slow trickling in.

Tags: GDS, activity, fantasy football, logos, project

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Replies to This Discussion

We still need 4 owners to decide their name/logo/backstory (emails have been sent) and 2 more to submit logos. I haven't corralled all of the backstories to understand what may be missing there, so if you didn't submit one, please do so by tonight (if possible).

1. Thurber-Mingus Thunder Chickens
2. Working on the logo.

3. Thurber-Mingus is a small Texas town on I20 between Dallas and Amarillo. Thee is a Middle ages style castle on hill just south of the highway and an old smokestack on the northern side. I have passed these to "landmarks" many times driving to and from college but have never stopped in the town. When my son was about four we were driving through on the way to see family for Thanksgiving and he noticed the castle and asked about it. Not actually knowing what it really was and why I began a long narrative about how there was a fued between the people of Thurber and Mingus over the smokestack and the castle was where the people of Mingus build up thier army to try and take the smokestack.

Of course this turned into a long silly story that we both added too over the next few hours in the car. A lot of it was very funny and silly, and I cant recall all of it. It involved sharks, ninjas, han solo and the like. I do remember that my son decided that the reason the towns people liked the smokestack so much was because it was made of chocolate and all the people who lived nearby had to lick the smokestack every month or they turn into turkeys.

Which brings us to the team name. Being an avid hunter I try to bring my boys in the woods with me as much as I can. It never seems to work out being a successful hunt, (no animal in the county will come close to two giggling fidgety boys) but the time spent is much more rewarding. Thunder Chicken is southern slang for wild turkeys, and my boys think its really funny.

Current Status:

NEED EVERYTHING
"Franchise 16" (name TBD) -- owned by the Gale family, Stillman Valley, IL

NEED LOGO & BACKSTORY
"Awesome City Hardballers" -- owned by the Hardy family, Redmond, WA

NEED LOGO
"Borough Bombers" -- owned by the Idenden family, Hillsborough, NJ.
"Short Pump Pancake Breakfasts" -- owned by the Davidson family, Richmond, VA
"Thurber-Mingus Thunder Chickens" -- owned by the Christian family, Frisco, TX

NEED BACKSTORY
"Grand Theft Votto" -- owned by the Carpenter family, Ripley, OH

Luke here for "Franchise 16." We're a late-inning substitution, but Jack was toying with two names as he left for school this morning. We'll have name/art/story up before our first pick in the draft (and hopefully much sooner)!

OK ... After several revisions to the art and a lengthy discussion about whether we should represent the Nation's Capitol or our domiciliary state, Franchise #16 is now ...

1. Official Team Name: The Maryland Ninjas

2. Logo attached. The pencil and ink art is all Jack's. He directed the digital art in the logo (including the Star Jedi font).

3. Doofenshmirtz-lite Backstory: Jack is 1/4 Japanese and has been fascinated with ninjas ever since falling in love with a Woot! shirt. Not long ago, LEGO released its NINJAGO themed sets, and he was hooked. The TV series pushed him over the edge: DVRing the show wasn't enough; he hunted down Korean-language versions online and knew the dramatic conclusion before any of his friends at school. So when I asked him to chose a mascot, no thought was required. 

Attachments:

Current Status:

NEED LOGO

"Borough Bombers" -- owned by the Idenden family, Hillsborough, NJ.
"Short Pump Pancake Breakfasts" -- owned by the Davidson family, Richmond, VA
"Thurber-Mingus Thunder Chickens" -- owned by the Christian family, Frisco, TX

NEED BACKSTORY
"Grand Theft Votto" -- owned by the Carpenter family, Ripley, OH

Here's the logo for the Minnehahas.

We live just a mile from Minnehaha Falls in south Minneapolis. It's where the poem "Song of Hiawatha" by Longfellow was based on.  We're surrounded by much of the imagery that's found in the poem as well. Not super "geeky" but interesting.

This logo is admittedly creepy - it's a girl laughing (drawn by my 5 year-old-daughter) and some water and trees on the sides drawn by my 6 year-old-son. I'm thinking I should teach my kiddos Photo-Shop Elements sometime soon. 

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