May 28, 2018

Why I won't be playing fantasy football this fall for the first time in almost 30 years

May 28, 2018/ Matt Halvorson

I’m about to turn 37 years old, and I’ve been playing fantasy football for almost 30 years. It is a bit crazy, but it’s true: I helped organize my first fantasy football league in 1990 as a fourth-grader in Fargo, ND.

But here we are in the spring of 2018, and fantasy football is suddenly unexpectedly interesting to me. I care again! I specifically want to quit.

January 22, 2018

Am I just acting like a sad-sack Vikings fan by not yanking my kids out of Seattle Public Schools?

January 22, 2018/ Matt Halvorson

This isn’t easy to admit right now, so I’m just going to come out and say it:

I’m a Vikings fan.

It’s true.

I’ve loved the Vikings all my life. When I was in 8th grade, I wore a Cris Carter jersey to school every Monday and Thursday pretty much all year long. I would have worn it even more if I wasn’t so sure that the wrong people would notice and harass me for wearing the same shirt every day.

I found that purple No. 80 jersey in a box in my parents’ basement in Iowa when we visited after Christmas a few weeks back, and I brought it home to Seattle along with my “lucky” purple Vikings socks. I was wearing the full ensemble yesterday for the first time in almost 20 years as I watched the Vikes get blown out by the Eagles 38-7 in the NFC Championship Game.

It was a genuine heartbreaker.