[USML Announce] THE POOL IS BACK - YEAR XVII!!

[Andrew Klein]

Greetings sports fans! It's the end of summer, and everything seems so 
familiar, it's "comfortable as an old pair of shoes." The Cubs are out 
of contention. The Tide are preparing to defend a national title. Mark 
Blocker is ensuring that he won't compete in rotisserie baseball for 
another decade. And 'ole #4 has retired, unretired, retired, and then 
unretired again.

But most important -- for the 17^th straight year -- it's Pool Time!!

For those of you who have forgotten, the rules follow.

1. This is a confidence pool. Every week, players must pick the winners 
of each NFL game and weight his or her confidence accordingly (i.e., 16 
on the game in which you have the most confidence down to 1 on the game 
in which you have the least confidence). In weeks when there are less 
than 16 games, players should pick from "16 down." For example, if there 
are 14 games in a week, players should rank weight the games from 16 to 3.

2. The Pool is "hosted" by CBS Sportsline 
(http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy). If you played last year and want to 
use a different e-mail address, please go to the site and change the 
address. If you are new this year, please let me know what e-mail 
address you want to use and I will send you and automated "invitation" 
via Sportsline.

3. During the season, you can make picks up until one hour before 
kickoff of the week's first game. After that, players are barred from 
picking, but will be able to see other players' picks and standings. 
(Note: If you miss a deadline, say due to a Thursday game, you should 
e-mail your picks directly to me at anrklein at yahoo.com. 
<mailto:anrklein at yahoo.com.> I can then assess the "16-point penalty" 
and enter the rest of your picks into the system).

* *

4. *BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND - PLEASE READ! *The Commissioner will once 
again take the lead in posting Pool Notes. That said, the Guest Note 
program of the past three seasons was widely-viewed as a rousing 
success. With that in mind, we will follow the same approach. Once a 
month, responsibility for the Notes will pass from the Commissioner to 
other Poolies. Assignments are based on division, with each division 
winner from last year responsible for organizing the Notes. The leaders 
can write them individually or collect commentary from each division 
member. Anything goes -- except for stuff from Ned, which will need to 
be approved by a censor. Here are the tentative assignments based on 
last year's standings.

Week 4 (Oct. 3): Frozen Tundra: Winick (Cooper, Peller, Gammons, Cole, 
Fruit, Cohen)

Week 8 (Oct. 31): Heart of Dixie: J.Weil (A.Klein, A.Weil, Wiatrak, 
Jones, England, Rogers)

Week 12 (Nov. 28): Suburban: Blocker (Robbins, Shafron, Weiss, Razowsky)

Week 16 (December 26): Urbanite: Kamp (Childs, Gordon, Easton, Butler, 
P.Klein)

5. I will still administer a few things from home. For those who want to 
play the Powerball Pool, I will take direct e-mails and report standings 
on the web page. (Please put "Powerball" in the subject line so I don't 
miss the message.) I also will report leaders in our traditional 
categories of "Weeks Won" and "Best Week."

6. We will continue our tradition of collecting Pool fees in memory of 
Devin. As you know, we have made a number of nice donations to The Devin 
Shafron Memorial Book Fund, a foundation established by Devin's mother, 
Phyllis, that provides books to Chicago Public School libraries. I 
propose that we continue to pay an entry fee of $30. This will entitle 
each player to participate in The Pool, the College Bowl Pool, and the 
Powerball Pool. Of course, donations beyond $30 are more than welcome.

Let me know if you have any questions. And feel free to nominate new 
participants -- the more the merrier!

-The Commissioner

POOL CHAMPIONS

2009 Jeff Winick

2008 Rick Gammons

2007 Rick Gammons

2006 Ned Peller

2005 Dan Cole

2004 Jim Weil

2003 Rhonda Robbins

2002 Bob Easton

2001 Linton Child

2000 Wayne Rogers

1999 Devin Shafron

1998 Linton Childs

1997 Devin Shafron

1996 Rick Gammons

1995 Devin Shafron

1994 Rick Gammons

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