07-25-2020, 04:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-25-2020, 04:36 PM by speculadora.)
3) For any team, certain players and users have gone above and beyond, shaping the legacy of the franchise. Choose any ISFL or DSFL team - with the exception of the Sarasota Sailfish and Honolulu Hahalua - and create a Mount Rushmore for that team. Who in your mind are the four most noteworthy figures of the team’s history? Why does each one of your included figures deserve that recognition, and how did each of them make their mark?
It feels fitting in light of my recent retirement that I choose this task, I suppose. A nice chance to reflect on the history of the Orange County Otters and my own time there. Let's start with myself, since I suppose even I can't pretend I would not be a part of this crew for the Otters.
speculadora - General Manager (S9 - S19)
101-49 All-Time (67.3%), 5 Ultimus Championships
I spent eleven full seasons as the head of the Orange County franchise and stepped down feeling very good about the fact that I had managed to keep the team playing at a high level the whole way through. My career record was 101-49 as the head honcho, good for a winning percentage of 67.3%. Interestingly and almost kind of funnily, that number actually lowered the franchise's all-time winning percentage. Just a testament to how good things were before I ever even knew this league existed, but I'll get to that shortly. Perhaps the crowning achievements of my tenure were reloading the team through a brief rebuild after our S7 Ultimus loss and guiding us to back-to-back titles in S12 and S13, and the three-peat that stretched from S17 through S19. I was certainly lucky to win all five of those title games, but I also think my tenure shows the value of just always being in a position to compete, because this sim is crazy and you never know what will happen.
timeconsumer - Player/Sim Guru (S1 - S12)
ISFL Hall of Fame Player and User, 4 Ultimus Championships
Timeconsumer's impact on the success of the Otters franchise can not be understated at all. While he was never directly in charge of the decision making, he was always working behind the scenes to provide the team staff with sim insights that provided us a competitive advantage for quite some time. Additionally, he just has a innate knack for roster-building, frequently helping us get on the winning side of important trades. He was part of the trades that brought myself and Carlito Crush to the Otters, and certainly played an integral roll in the team's ability to accumulate and maintain talent over his time as a war room member. Often that just boiled down to giving a different perspective on potential trades or draftees than most people have. Whatever the secret sauce is, it worked and it worked well.
Molarpistols - General Manager (S3 - S8)
61-23 (72.6%), 3 Ultimus Championships
Molarpistols was my GM mentor when I first joined the Otters, and while some of his success and the success of the team as a whole can be fairly credited to timeconsumer, I always felt that Molar did not get the credit that he deserved because of TC's role as simmer and guy who knows things. Just look at that absolute unit of a record as general manager of the team. He also had a three-peat of his own, extending from S4 to S6, and very nearly extended that to a four-peat before finally being upset in an Ultimus against Philadelphia, actually the very day they agreed to the trade for me. Still, Molar had a very similar approach to roster building as TC, and I learned a lot from both. I think they both benefited from working together and both deserve a spot on an Otters Mt. Rushmore.
Mike Boss - Quarterback (S1 - S9)
87-39 (69.0%), 3 Ultimus Championships, 3 MVP Awards, Hall of Famer
You probably cannot tell the story of the Otters without including Mike Boss, so here we are. The most dominant quarterback in league history from both the standpoint of individual success and team success. Boss had an absolutely monstrous tenure as the quarterback of the Otters, leading the way to the three-peat while racking up passing numbers that will probably never be matched in the rest of the league's future. I'm not exactly sure what the tally on all of his individual accolades wound up at, but I know he won 3 MVP awards, a feat unmatched I believe until another Otter came along. Still, Boss to the early stages of this league was like combining Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. It was truly unfair.
Honestly, a Mount Rushmore limits me to four people and that is absolutely brutal when you're trying to encapsulate a team's entire history. I think Franklin Armstrong is well on his way to being a fifth face on this monument. He has 3 MVPs and 3 Ultimus trophies of his own, as well as some of the best overall stats as a rusher and passer that we've seen from a quarterback. He's been the model of efficiency as the league meta has shifted, and he probably shifted the entire quarterback meta with his play. His impact both as an Otter and just as a player in the story of the ISFL is really impressive and his face would belong up with the others the instant he retires. You could easily argue Bradley Westfield, for my money the greatest wideout in league history, as being deserving of the list above. Westy and Boss was such a dominant combo that it's nearly impossible to not appreciate them together.
That said, I can't just overlook some of the incredibly successful players and users we've had over the seasons who've been integral to our success. Marc Spector, Danny Grithead, Mason Brown, Tegan Atwell, Johnny Blaze, and so many more please don't kill me if I left a name off. Not including so many great players was a tough choice, and there are probably a ton of ways you could put together an OCO Mount Rushmore. I look forward to seeing all of the new faces worth adding as the league continues into the future.
It feels fitting in light of my recent retirement that I choose this task, I suppose. A nice chance to reflect on the history of the Orange County Otters and my own time there. Let's start with myself, since I suppose even I can't pretend I would not be a part of this crew for the Otters.
speculadora - General Manager (S9 - S19)
101-49 All-Time (67.3%), 5 Ultimus Championships
I spent eleven full seasons as the head of the Orange County franchise and stepped down feeling very good about the fact that I had managed to keep the team playing at a high level the whole way through. My career record was 101-49 as the head honcho, good for a winning percentage of 67.3%. Interestingly and almost kind of funnily, that number actually lowered the franchise's all-time winning percentage. Just a testament to how good things were before I ever even knew this league existed, but I'll get to that shortly. Perhaps the crowning achievements of my tenure were reloading the team through a brief rebuild after our S7 Ultimus loss and guiding us to back-to-back titles in S12 and S13, and the three-peat that stretched from S17 through S19. I was certainly lucky to win all five of those title games, but I also think my tenure shows the value of just always being in a position to compete, because this sim is crazy and you never know what will happen.
timeconsumer - Player/Sim Guru (S1 - S12)
ISFL Hall of Fame Player and User, 4 Ultimus Championships
Timeconsumer's impact on the success of the Otters franchise can not be understated at all. While he was never directly in charge of the decision making, he was always working behind the scenes to provide the team staff with sim insights that provided us a competitive advantage for quite some time. Additionally, he just has a innate knack for roster-building, frequently helping us get on the winning side of important trades. He was part of the trades that brought myself and Carlito Crush to the Otters, and certainly played an integral roll in the team's ability to accumulate and maintain talent over his time as a war room member. Often that just boiled down to giving a different perspective on potential trades or draftees than most people have. Whatever the secret sauce is, it worked and it worked well.
Molarpistols - General Manager (S3 - S8)
61-23 (72.6%), 3 Ultimus Championships
Molarpistols was my GM mentor when I first joined the Otters, and while some of his success and the success of the team as a whole can be fairly credited to timeconsumer, I always felt that Molar did not get the credit that he deserved because of TC's role as simmer and guy who knows things. Just look at that absolute unit of a record as general manager of the team. He also had a three-peat of his own, extending from S4 to S6, and very nearly extended that to a four-peat before finally being upset in an Ultimus against Philadelphia, actually the very day they agreed to the trade for me. Still, Molar had a very similar approach to roster building as TC, and I learned a lot from both. I think they both benefited from working together and both deserve a spot on an Otters Mt. Rushmore.
Mike Boss - Quarterback (S1 - S9)
87-39 (69.0%), 3 Ultimus Championships, 3 MVP Awards, Hall of Famer
You probably cannot tell the story of the Otters without including Mike Boss, so here we are. The most dominant quarterback in league history from both the standpoint of individual success and team success. Boss had an absolutely monstrous tenure as the quarterback of the Otters, leading the way to the three-peat while racking up passing numbers that will probably never be matched in the rest of the league's future. I'm not exactly sure what the tally on all of his individual accolades wound up at, but I know he won 3 MVP awards, a feat unmatched I believe until another Otter came along. Still, Boss to the early stages of this league was like combining Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. It was truly unfair.
Honestly, a Mount Rushmore limits me to four people and that is absolutely brutal when you're trying to encapsulate a team's entire history. I think Franklin Armstrong is well on his way to being a fifth face on this monument. He has 3 MVPs and 3 Ultimus trophies of his own, as well as some of the best overall stats as a rusher and passer that we've seen from a quarterback. He's been the model of efficiency as the league meta has shifted, and he probably shifted the entire quarterback meta with his play. His impact both as an Otter and just as a player in the story of the ISFL is really impressive and his face would belong up with the others the instant he retires. You could easily argue Bradley Westfield, for my money the greatest wideout in league history, as being deserving of the list above. Westy and Boss was such a dominant combo that it's nearly impossible to not appreciate them together.
That said, I can't just overlook some of the incredibly successful players and users we've had over the seasons who've been integral to our success. Marc Spector, Danny Grithead, Mason Brown, Tegan Atwell, Johnny Blaze, and so many more please don't kill me if I left a name off. Not including so many great players was a tough choice, and there are probably a ton of ways you could put together an OCO Mount Rushmore. I look forward to seeing all of the new faces worth adding as the league continues into the future.
![[Image: 8DpwXfg.png]](https://i.imgur.com/8DpwXfg.png)