Every time August rolls around there is one constant image that continues to run through our minds when it comes to sports and our campus — fantasy football.

OK, maybe it’s a little extreme when comparing fantasy to real life, but I believe everyone associated with Contra Costa College should be fantasizing about the Comet football team and its three consecutive conference championships. They are the defending Pacific 7 champions and have the Pac 7 coach of the year, Alonzo Carter.

But then again we never sell out the stadium, so who cares right?

Before you get all defensive, take a second to look at what the University of Michigan did this offseason.

It brought former 49er head coach and Michigan alumnus Jim Harbaugh back to Ann Arbor to fill their 109,901 seat stadium (The Big House) with rabid fans who will be cheering as if it were the arrival of the Messiah.

Over the top? Maybe. But I guaranteed the scenery at the “Big House” will be of epic proportions come mid-September on ESPN.

Book it.

So I challenge any alumnus, or anyone associated with CCC, to come out on Saturdays throughout the 2015 season. The first home game is this Saturday versus Cabrillo College at 3 p.m.

Tell a friend, set up a date and bring out the blue vuvuzela to cheer on the team that just had one of its best seasons in school history.

But I think you still do not believe me when I say we have something special going on here.

Just remember when you are drafting Beast Mode (Seattle Seahawk’s running back Marshawn Lynch) as your first pick in fantasy football this year that his brother, Devonte Sapp-Lynch, used to barrel over linebackers and cornerbacks on campus.

Imagine Sapp-Lynch as a solid number two running back on your fantasy team.

Now that would be pretty cool.

Or why not fantasize on how awesome it would be to possibly draft former CCC Athlete of the Year Jonathan Banks in a couple of years in your fantasy draft.

Banks was chosen as the Offensive Player of the Year in the Northern California Football Conference after he beat out three quarterbacks here at CCC, and now he is facing a similar situation with the Kansas State Wildcats.

However, in the end a lot of people missed the opportunity to watch Banks do his thing on the field. Do not feel bad because now you can catch him on ESPN, playing in Big 12 matches against top college football giants such as TCU, Texas and Oklahoma.

Pretty amazing stuff given what the CCC athletic program is producing on the football field. Gut the masses of people who should be attending these games, and enjoying the players, are not.

And when you combine it with the little free time in our schedules, the entire missed opportunity to see these talented athletes so close to your community is kind of sad.

Sports allows you to become part of something bigger — and better — just like our Comet football team.

It can bring out the ultimate competitor within all of us.

Pretty sure though you will be spending a lot of Saturdays analyzing, critiquing and relishing about your fantasy football team put together by the push of a button, whereas watching the next big thing possibly bound for the NFL is long gone and you have missed it.

Jose Jimenez is spotlight editor of The Advocate. Contact him at [email protected].