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+---- Thread: *Draft Night S31 - TW3 A New Duckling! (/showthread.php?tid=34981)
*Draft Night S31 - TW3 A New Duckling! - KC15 - 09-09-2021
Draft night in most homes is a well-ordered, if still very nerve-wracking affair. The draftee calls either family or friends or a combination of both to gather at his or her place. A menu of nachos, cheese platters, wings, dips, and other assorted appetizers is planned and executed. Plenty of good beer is stocked in the fridge and maybe some wine, cocktails, and soda are made available for the non-beer drinker.
Then, well before the main event starts, everyone enjoys themselves. They enjoy the beverages and good food. They listen to some great tunes on the home sound system and they laugh and chat in relative calm.
I say relative calm because there is no calm for the draftee. They are on pins and needles all night until their name is called – wondering if and when and most importantly where they are going to start their professional career. All sorts of questions start going through their heads. Did they impress enough during the Prospect Bowl? How did the teams’ scouting departments and GMs feel their answers were handled – like a pro you would want in your locker room or like someone to avoid at all costs? Did that decision to switch positions help or hurt them? And the most dreaded question – what if they are not drafted at all? Oh my Lord – the dreaded line in a next-day article in the local paper. “Tobias Worthington III, who had high hopes going into the S31 DSFL draft, had his draft day hopes shattered when he learned that he had gone … undrafted”. What a bone-chilling, devastating word – “undrafted”.
So, draft night is not a relaxing normal gathering for the draftee no matter how many friends and family surround him or her, but at least 99% of the time, they do have that pre-draft support and most importantly they are in place and ready to watch the live draft feed on TV. They are ready to receive that all-important phone call from the team welcoming them to the __________ (insert team name here). They are ready to show up in the locker room immediately after that call indicating their excitement to have been drafted by __________ (insert team name here) and their willingness to get to work to do their part in bringing home a championship for the fans of __________ (insert team name here).
But Tobias Worthington III (TW3) is not in the 99% this draft day. He is firmly in the 1% - one of the most important times you don’t want to be in the 1%. You see, Wednesday nights are Bible study nights for TW3 at his home church, Christ Episcopal Church, in Greenwich, Connecticut. You would think he might just take a night off since this is draft day, which only comes around twice in an entire career. But that doesn’t feel like an option for TW3. He isn’t just one of the members of the group; he is leading this particular Bible study on the parables of Jesus. He has committed himself to this group and this ministry and though it is the last class before the leadership baton passes to the next person, he is not going to cancel.
Class is scheduled to go until 8:00 pm Eastern time. TW3’s Bible study is scheduled for the hour 7-8 pm Eastern. So there will be no gathering with friends and family for the couple of hours leading up to the draft. Friends and family will surely gather, but TW3 will be in class. TW3 has no great illusions of going 1OA or even necessarily in the first round, but he is worried that should that unlikely event happen, he will not be home in time to receive that crucial call from his team. He will look like a no-show in the locker room. Teammates may feel he thinks he is too important to show up and say hello – that he is not committed to the team. It will make concentrating on the study all that much harder.
This was the pre-draft situation for TW3. In the end, how did it all play out for this QB prospect out of Yale University in New Haven, CT?
__________________
Class ended on time and TW3 hustled as quickly as he could to get home, but he didn’t want to be rude. This cost him precious minutes, but what are you going to do? The draft was surely in progress, so decision time. Should he drive right into the presentation or watch it on rewind? He was hoping that the stream might have gotten started just a little late and that he may have missed the announcement of only 2 or 3 of the first picks and surely he wasn’t going as high as 3OA. With that hope he decided to jump right into the stream and quickly learned that the stream had started right on time and that they were already into the second round.
His heart pounding, TW3 felt he had to check the names of the first rounders that he could still see flashed up on the screen and there was his name lit up on the big DSFL Draft Board as pretty as you please. Tobias Worthington III – drafted to the Minnesota Grey Ducks with the last pick of the first round (8OA).
Any disappointment there might have been in not getting to hear his name called live on stream completely evaporated when he realized that he had just been drafted to his number one location! He was a Grey Duck of Minnesota!! A dream come true!
As soon as he could, he dove into conversations in the LR – being reunited with old friends and starting up relationships with new friends. No need to have worried that his teammates might think he just didn’t care enough to immediately jump into the LR. He was welcomed with open arms by veteran players and fellow draftees alike – as well as both GMs, of course. TW3 wants to settle in as quickly as possible. As a brand new duckling, he has little status or influence, but as Minnesota’s heir apparent QB following Kazimir Oles, Jr. he knows it is his job to step up and be a leader.
So draft night, S31. It began with almost unbearable waiting and anticipation and it ended with a flurry of activity. TW3 wouldn’t want it any other way!
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1066 words (x1.5 payout)RE: Draft Night S31 - TW3 A New Duckling! - IceBear32 - 09-09-2021
A star is born baby!
RE: Draft Night S31 - TW3 A New Duckling! - captjanko - 09-09-2021
Let's go Quack to Quack! Excited to fly with you!