Trade for Cam Newton gives
87-year-old great-grandma
Yahoo fantasy league crown
POSTED BY CHIEFG AT 10:11 P.M., JAN. 25, 2012
Pat Hanzlik, of Northfield, Minn., knows her football. The 87-year-old great-grandmother won her 12-team Yahoo fantasy league in her 25th year of the pastime most her age have never heard of. She beat her son, a middle school teacher, to claim the crown.
Hanzlik says the fantasy game has come a long way.
"I had played (back then) with people at work and we would check the injury reports, record players’ yards and everything by reading the paper,” Hanzlik said. “I also played against my husband, too. That was definitely the wrong thing to do."
Quinn Hanzlik, a high school freshman, said Sundays with a grandma who is addicted to fantasy football is the highlight of the weekend.
“She comes over to our house and we watch the games together,” Quinn said. “She reads the bottom ticker on the screen to keep track of her players. And she makes Dad check the computer every 10 minutes to see how her team is doing.”
One trade sealed the title for the retirement community resident: she got Cam Newton for Victor Cruz and Cedric Benson in November.
She attends nearly every athletic event her grandchildren participate in. Everyone knows her as GP — Grandma Pat.
“People (at Northfield Retirement Community) ask me if I’m playing actual football,” Hanzlik said. “About 95 percent of them don’t know what fantasy football is.”