Chaminade Grad Evan Silva: Red Devil Turned Fantasy Football Guru

Baseball may be America's pastime, and in St. Louis it is clear that the Cardinals are the top dog, but for a long time, football has largely held America's sports fascination.

Part of that is due to the explosion of "fantasy football" which gets fans emotionally invested in the performance of players outside those who might be on a fan's favorite club.

One of the more respected gurus in the world of fantasy football happens to be a 2001 Chaminade graduate. Silva is the Senior Football Editor at rotoworld.com, based out of Chicago.

It must run in the family, because his younger brother Drew (Chaminade Class of 2005), writes about baseball for the site.

Patch conducted an email interview with Evan Silva to find out how he got there and what influenced his thinking as a fan and as a writer. He also has a candid take on trying to decipher what NFL teams are thinking leading up to the draft:

Patch: Is this what you thought you'd be doing when you graduated from Chaminade? How does one go from there to Marquette to study political science and end up in a career writing about pro football?

Silva: I graduated from Marquette University planning to attend law school, but always kind of knew deep down I'd end up doing something in sports. I've been obsessive about sports knowledge for as long as I can remember. I wrote about football, basketball, and baseball for the Chaminade newspaper in high school. Knowing about sports was my passion and writing came natural, so it wasn't difficult to put those two things together.

Throughout college I read a website called Rotoworld.com, which provides very in-depth player news and analysis. I emailed Gregg Rosenthal, Rotoworld's head editor at the time. I emailed him several things I'd written just for fun. I worked for free for about six months and they wound up hiring me full time. Rotoworld eventually was purchased by NBC and now I write pretty regularly for NBCSports.com. Rosenthal has since moved on to NFL.com and I now am the senior editor for Rotoworld's football section.

Patch: What influenced you as a fan growing up and how has that informed/influenced you as a writer?

Silva: I remember going to baseball games with my dad when I was little and him telling me about each player before each at-bat. We lived near D.C., before Washington got the Nationals. My dad took me to Baltimore Orioles games at old Memorial Stadium. These names probably mean nothing to you, but I loved hearing about Randy Mulligan, Joe Orsulak, and Mickey Tettleton and watching them play. This name might ring a bell: Cal Ripken Jr. He was my hero. I loved knowing these guys' batting averages and on-base percentages. I had all of their baseball cards. I had over 100 Ripken cards. (Still do.) I read them front to back and got familiar with baseball lingo.

My parents divorced when I was 7. My mother remarried when I was 11 and we moved to St. Louis. My stepdad is Philip Rone, now the principal at Chaminade. 

(Editor's Note: Rone is currently an assistant principal who will assume the high school principal's duties in the fall)

But when I was younger my stepdad was a history teacher and coach. He coached baseball and football. I wasn't very good at sports, but my stepdad taught me so much about them. He had a huge influence on my sports knowledge. As did Kelvin Lee, Chaminade's basketball coach. As did Mike Massa, who coaches baseball, basketball, and soccer at Chaminade. Also Chaminade baseball coach Rick Wibbenmeyer and football coach Doug Taylor. I was around these guys every day from the sixth through twelfth grades and it rubbed off.

Patch: Especially in the weeks leading up to the NFL Draft, there seems to be so much BS and smokescreening going on. What are the "tells" you look for indetermining what's real and what's meant to keep opponents guessing?

Silva: It's truly impossible to decipher what's real from what's team-planted before the draft. It's called "Lying Season" for a reason. I take everything with a grain of salt. Instead of immediately deeming a certain bit of information trustworthy or untrustworthy, I think the best approach is to simply think to yourself "that's interesting," and move on to the next thing.

The bottom line is that no one -- and I mean NO ONE, not even NFL teams -- knows what is going to happen in the draft. It's one of the most unpredictable entities in sports. I'd put it right up there with the NCAA tournament, and the NFL draft might be even more unpredictable than that.

Saturday on Patch, we'll tell you what Silva thinks of the St. Louis Rams offseason and what the team should target in the draft.