From The Commissioner's Desk

We are about to begin the sixth season of the USFL/WFL. I think this is the best user-created league in MFN, and here are some reasons why:

• Nearly half of our teams (15 of 32) are still being coached by the original coaches.
• Of those 32 teams, 27 have made at least one playoff appearance.
• The same team hasn't dominated since Day One. Detroit has won two World Bowls, but that wasn't a foregone conclusion either season, and there were teams capable of knocking them off.
• We rarely have an opening that lasts more than a few days.
• Look at our forums. No drama. No bickering. Mild disagreement at times, but no flame wars. That's the kind of culture I was hoping would prevail here.
• I was proud of the empathy shown to pdoug20 during his recent personal tragedy. I hope the expressions of support from his coaching peers encouraged him.

Look at the 32 other public user-created leagues. Many of them are already on life support. Most of them offer no added value. Paydirt has a website and is a very well-run league. A few others have polls, etc., in their forums. But there are some leagues where you can find absolutely no communication from the commissioner to the members. Others have already been abandoned by their commissioner.

In short, while not perfect, I think we have a good thing going here, and one that can be sustained.

Rethinking "Noob Friendly"

From the outset, we have marketed the USFL/WFL as a "noob-friendly" league. I have been considering that term recently and wonder how it should be defined.

I have reached out to several coaches new to MFN and asked them to consider our league. When they join, I assign them to a member of the mentoring committee to get answers to any questions they have. While it sounds good, this approach has a downside.

• MFN has a steep learning curve when compared with other SIM games. The learning and development process takes longer, and delayed gratification is not welcome in our current culture. So, new coaches get overwhelmed and discouraged quickly and sometimes abandon their teams while still a work in progress.
• New coaches are sometimes just trying out the game. If they don't like it, they leave, often in the middle of the season. Then the poor commish has to recruit yet another coach to fill the opening.
• New coaches can make some decisions, especially salary cap decisions, that can negatively impact a franchise for many seasons.
• New coaches often don't consult their mentor or read the forums, two really good resources. Why? Because doing so requires time and effort, and many don't want to put that much time and effort into their pastime.
• The demographics of our league have changed. In the beginning, a lot of us were just getting into MFN. Five seasons later, our league has many veteran coaches who have experienced success and built teams elsewhere. So, a new coach has an even smaller chance of fielding a championship-caliber team.

With all that in mind, I am probably more likely to seek out a veteran coach to fill future openings. I hope we will always be "noob friendly," but we may be crossing paths with fewer noobs as time goes by.

The Future of the Stars

I am starting a fourth season as coach of the New York Stars. I never intended to stay with the Stars this long. I knew they would be a rebuilding project when I took over. A long one, I thought. Then the Stars won consecutive division titles. So, I thought it was time to go. But, when I offered the new coaches the choice of the Stars or another franchise, they always took the other franchise.

In the interest of full disclosure, the newest coaches with Philadelphia and Washington both said they would take either. However, I let them have the Bell and Federals because I have written a ton of rules and copying and moving over all those rules is a BIG job.

Then, my rebuild came crashing down around me like a poorly supported staircase. The Stars were 3-13 last season after an 0-13 start. That's a pretty lousy rebuild.

I had been messing with some serious gameplanning changes, and began making those changes to my four (now five) teams. The Stars were the last to get those changes. When they did, they won three in a row to finish out the season.

I am hoping for better things for New York in 1979. And, if I am not needed to rebuild my rebuild again, it will be time for me to move on to another challenge for 1980. That is my intention, anyway.