“I knew I should have started him this week.”

That is a phrase uttered every week by fantasy sports owners throughout the nation. This phrase and everything revolving around it has been created by this popular realm of “sports.”

Fantasy sports have been around since 1980 when Daniel Okrent, a magazine writer and editor, imagined that friends could get together and draft players from Major League Baseball.

The participants would use the player’s statistics to determine scores of simulated games to decide a winner.

This started a fad that has expanded far beyond baseball. In today’s world, there are fantasy sports for any sport out there. ESPN now hires analysts and advisers to help participants with picking their teams.

Participants start every season by getting a pool of friends or just a bunch of random people together and setting up a league.

After things are ready to go, each member of the league will partake in a draft where they select players for their team.

The interesting thing about fantasy sports is that the participants are ordinary people. It is a sport for people who are of varying levels of interest and knowledge.

Kyle McGranahan, a senior at Northwestern College, is one of many college students who thirst for the start of any fantasy sport.

“It is awesome because you get to be your own manager,” McGranahan said. “It’s kind of like being a coach of a professional team.”

Students have taken fantasy sports to a new level over the past few years. More and more college students can be seen checking their teams in class or at work or whenever they have the opportunity.

“I check my fantasy sports every day when I have time,” McGranahan said. “With classes and work getting to you after a while, it provides a great way to have fun and feel like you’re part of a real team.”

Fantasy sports range from the big three of baseball, football and basketball, to sports such as NASCAR, golf and even curling.

“Baseball is my passion, and it’s always been my favorite,” McGranahan said. “But I have done football, basketball, golf, NASCAR and even hockey. Each one gives you something different, and that’s what I like.”

Being patient with whom each owner is going to start, trade or get rid of is the somewhat frustrating part about fantasy sports. Some die-hard fantasy players will spend hours each week deciding which quarterback to start.

Each week the manager of each team decides who they want to start at each position and who to sit. After the games are played, the player’s stats are used to award points for their performance, and whoever has the most combined points wins the game.

“It’s so tricky because one week a player could be on fire while another is not, then it will change the next week,” McGranahan said.

According to many comments from players on ESPN.com, football is the toughest to judge because it is only played once a week instead of daily like baseball and basketball.

Single-player sports such as golf and NASCAR work differently than team sports. Each time a tournament or race occurs, the participant picks one athlete to win instead of having a whole team of players.

Despite all of the fun, a growing problem involving fantasy sports is the addiction that people have to it.

Several reports have suggested that students have taken the fantasy sports too far. According to one report done by CNN a few years ago, the fantasy realm has interfered with the academics of many students.

Countless times in class, students are seen with their laptops opened up to their fantasy leagues, adding and dropping players and trying to win that coveted fantasy championship.

“It’s hard not to get addicted,” McGranahan said.

“I have checked my fantasy online before and during class, but I only did when I saw a bunch of the girls in my computer class looking at Facebook and chatting.”

Many are concerned that the fantasy world has just added to the growing problem of people spending too much time online instead of getting out and doing physical activity, but many participants balance it well.

“I am very active with sports and so are many of my friends,” McGranahan said.

Feeling like you are in control of your own professional team is what attracts many to fantasy sports.

People who have no chance to be able to own a professional sports franchise can feel like they do.

Many gamers make fantasy teams on their video games and this is another way they can do that.

As long as people do not become addicted to it and make it their life, most experts see no problem with fantasy sports.