Last Thursday morning I got on a red eye flight on no sleep and flew to Dallas, Texas for the NFL Draft.

The NFL Draft was in NYC for years and I started organizing group trips to the Draft to promote Dolfans NYC, the local New York Dolphins fan club that I ran. We would go to the draft and hand out flyers to any other Dolphins fans we could find. We would occasionally get on TV with the idea of letting other New York Dolphins fans that we existed. Using the Draft to promote the club actually worked really well and we got a ton of new members because of it. Our group is now the biggest Dolphins fan club in the world and we became a non-profit company and have donated tens of thousands of dollars to different charities over the years.

Unfortunately a few years ago the NFL got into a disagreement with Radio City Music Hall and decided to start moving the Draft to different cities. It was pretty disappointing for us but it’s probably good for everyone else. They have turned it into a huge event and I have to imagine this years in Dallas was by far the biggest. 

The NFL came up with a great idea for the Draft this year. They would give every NFL team 50 tickets to their most diehard fans and let them sit on the floor of AT&T Stadium so that whenever a pick was announced TV cameras could focus on these crazy looking, passionate, fans. These fans were chosen in different ways by different teams. Some teams held contests, and some just gave them out to their most loyal ($$$) season ticket holders. The Miami Dolphins decided to offer their tickets to the fan clubs from around the country. 

When Dolfans NYC was offered two tickets I reached out to my partner Michelle who didn’t really have any interest in going. Neither of us really care about the draft, but we thought it would be good to be represented so we used some of our club frequent flyer miles to fly me to Dallas. I had to book really horrible flights because I didn’t want to pay for a longer hotel stay than I had to and was really regretting the trip pretty much up until the moment I walked into the stadium.

Because of the amazing luck of the seats being in alphabetical order the Dolphins were the very closest seats to the stage. Their division the AFC East was closest to the stage and Miami was the second city alphabetically in that division so we were actually even more centered than the Buffalo Bills because they organized them from outside in. None of this is that interesting but it was really cool to have front row seats to the draft, right on the floor of one of the most insane stadiums in the world.

Each section had a person that was in charge of the group. Ours happened to be a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader named Kelsey who was making sure we were going crazy when the TV cameras were on us. Shortly before the Dolphins first round pick I bought a water and I got $14 in one dollar bills as change. Kelsey and I started joking about having ones for a strip club and then I was talking about how I should make it rain on a draft pick and so she dared me to do it. After they were drafted all the players would come over to the super fan groups and pose for a photo and so when the Dolphins selected Minkah Fitzpatrick with the 11th pick in the Draft I had no choice but to throw money on him. It was one of the better things I have done with my life and fortunately Kelsey got the whole thing on video. 

Anyway, after our pick I was pretty exhausted and just sort of sat around talking to my friend Ross who was one of the original members of Dolfans NYC but lives in Dallas now. It was great to see him and nice to just relax after the madness of the draft. He had to head back to work the next day so for day two I brought my cousin’s husband who lives nearby. He’s a die hard Dolphins fan himself and it was cool to hang out with him. I am sure it’s the first time I have spent any time with him without the rest of the family around.

Day two was a lot more relaxed than day one because the picks aren’t really of the same caliber of player. They did have NFL legends announce the second round and current players announce the third. We had Hall of Famer Dwight Stephenson and Pro Bowl safety Reshad Jones. I love both of those players so that was really cool. I also decided to wear this stupid luchador mask I bought as a joke because it seemed like the best way to get our Dolfans NYC logo on TV. It worked, and I made it on TV praying to a Dolphins baby who was being held aloft Lion King style. 

Okay, so I realize most of you don’t care about any of this, but when I finally do my juggalo book I want to do a companion zine called FAN ZINE that’s just a collection of photos of crazy fans, be they juggalos or NFL superfans or cosplayers or Bronies or whatever. So this was pretty great chance to get some shots for that zine and while I admittedly half assed the photos because I was exhausted and trying to take in the draft, I did get some pretty wild shots of fans. I also shot some of the stuff from before the game, but it was like 100 degrees out and I was mostly trying not to burn (I failed).

So click here to see all my photos from the 2018 NFL Draft in Dallas, Texas.

 

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