![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
Hi Gary, thanks for doing the interview. Could you introduce yourself?
My name is Gary, & I hail from Elkhart Indiana, USA. I'm 33 & have 2 wonderful kids, my daughter Zoe who is 8 & my son Ethan who is 6
I ran a short lived Wolf ET resource site at Evil Territory but it was used mostly by our clan. When TWL closed the doors on their Wolf ET leagues last year we were out of a competitive place to play. We soon after started an inner clan scrim league with about 10 teams & it's just kind of grown from that. I'm not the best player around but I love the game & the community & just really enjoy playing to have fun & enjoy providing a place for others to compete.
The competition is in honour of Don Baker, could you tell us about him, his life and why he's motivated you to raise as much money as possible for cancer research?
Don is my wifes Grandfather. Roughly a month ago he went in for a routine check up & the discovered he had cancer of the lungs, liver & pancreas. At that time they gave him 6months to a year to live. A week later he went back in for another checkup & they discovered the cancer was advancing rather quickly.It had spread to his bones & they then told him he had weeks to live. This was about 3 weeks ago.
Dons a great guy who is a riot to be around. He's always quick witted & always has a joke. Even being as sick as he is it hasn't slowed him down much. He's very careful not to let you know how he's really feeling. Thats not his style. He would never want you to worry about him.
My motivation for doing this is I lost my own father almost a year ago to many many years of alcohol abuse. When I was I kid I used to try n get him to slow down & change but over time I lost faith in him & quit trying to help him. I basically accepted him as he was & accepted the fact that he was killing himself. When he did die I felt like I didn't do enough, I felt guilty for giving up on him & swore from that point on I would never give
With Don & his condition now theres not much I can do to help him. I cant reverse the damage but what I can do is in his honor, use the tools available to me to raise money for future & current Cancer patients.
Hopefully when we're all old we wont have to go through what he is
How have your family reacted to this noble, yet somewhat unconventional charity event?
My wife tears up when she sees how much attention it's getting. Her Mom as well has been very emotional about it. Don he's old & really doesn't understand the internet so he doesn't really understand.
What do you aim to achieve through the tournament?
Well it's my personal belief that we are at the dawn of something thats potentially gonna be extremely large & thats online gaming. Online gamers are quickly becoming one of the largest demographics in the world & good % of them are college age or younger.
Personally as an older guy in a young persons world (online gaming) I feel a personal responsibility to ensure that I am doing my part to involve & educate todays youth of problems we all face & do my part to get them involved in productive activities & functions
Gateway for Cancer Research have been chosen as the tournaments charity, why where they chosen? And what reaction did you get from GCR when you approached them?
Actually Gateway was not the 1st choice. I went through a service that graded different charities & I had actually contacted a few others prior to Gateway & was getting no response. When I found Gateway I was excited as they also do the Walter Payton Cancer fund. As an avid Chicago Bears fan Walter was one of my childhood heroes so I was excited to work with a charity that does so much in his honor.
When I contacted them the 1st time via phone I talked with Carrie. She was very interested & excited about the idea. She didn't understand a whole lot about online gaming but seemed pretty amazed with the idea. I think the term "Really Neat" came up a few times. Shes a wonderful lady whose been most helpful thus far in accommodating whatever we need thats within her ability.
And what is it Gateway for Cancer Research work towards, their mission?
Well the one thing that stood out to me that made them different was: Gateway ONLY provides funding for cancer research (not outreach, education, etc.), which assures a focused, immediate impact on patients.
Education is important but that's basically money that goes to Doctors. Whereas Gateway funds vital clinical cancer research that vets innovative new options for those battling cancer until a cure is found.
What they do has a direct impact on the patients
Also Gateway is a charity where 99 cents of every dollar donated to Gateway funds cancer research. This ratio is unparalleled in any not-for-profit setting. To quote Carrie exactly "That other 1 cent pays for my pens & paper barely"
Sounds like they're doing a fantastic job. Hopefully it'll motivate teams to take an interest and signup - how are signups going so far?
Theres a tremendous amount of interest & I've gotten alot of promises.... I think the whole pay to play concept is something thats new to Wolf ET players so theres an unknown factor there for the teams, they're not quite sure how to go about it as they've never done it. But I think (& you will see some teams signing up this week) once a couple sign up other teams will react.
I think we've removed as much doubt about the legitimacy of the cup & for most of the teams I've talked to thats no longer an issue. It's more organizing the funds amongst themselves & getting it to one person to donate. At this point its all logistics
You mention logistics. Some teams are having issues signing up with debit cards - can you offer any solution?
There are alternatives methods some of which would hinge on trust. I have a personal paypal account that could if needed be used others have offered theres as well. I can tell you ETL is my pride & joy. I have countless hours of my life invested into the league, it's something thats very dear to me & a scamming a few people out of a $1000 & losing what I have built is not on my agenda. So yes there are other ways but it would require a certain amount of trust.
Also paypal charges an extra 3% so that would have to be accounted into the donation.
The other alternative is mailing a check or money order to Gateway. its a little slower method but none the less works
And how can interested teams signup?
Signup is in 2 parts: first the donation, links to the Gateway donation page can be found on the Cups homepage at ETL - all the instructions for donating are on that page & in the crossfire news post.
After a team makes a donation they simply select Cup Signup in the Cup menu on left side of page
Here is the direct link.
If people are inspired by what they're read, yet don't have a team or the interest to compete - can they donate directly to GCR, and how?
Absolutely & we even encourage it. It's the same link as above, they just need not put the team info in the form. Thankyou to anyone that does.
Thankyou for the interview. My thoughts and everyones from Crossfire go out to you and everyone in a similar position. Good luck with the competition - and let's get more teams signed up, and more money raised for cancer research.
Cup Homepage: http://evilterritory.com/index.php?l=12
Charity: Gateway For Cancer Research
Letter of confirmation: http://evilterritory.com/gateway.pdf
Contact: evilzombie@evilterritory.com
IRC: [irc]#evilterritory[/irc]
My name is Gary, & I hail from Elkhart Indiana, USA. I'm 33 & have 2 wonderful kids, my daughter Zoe who is 8 & my son Ethan who is 6
I ran a short lived Wolf ET resource site at Evil Territory but it was used mostly by our clan. When TWL closed the doors on their Wolf ET leagues last year we were out of a competitive place to play. We soon after started an inner clan scrim league with about 10 teams & it's just kind of grown from that. I'm not the best player around but I love the game & the community & just really enjoy playing to have fun & enjoy providing a place for others to compete.
The competition is in honour of Don Baker, could you tell us about him, his life and why he's motivated you to raise as much money as possible for cancer research?
Don is my wifes Grandfather. Roughly a month ago he went in for a routine check up & the discovered he had cancer of the lungs, liver & pancreas. At that time they gave him 6months to a year to live. A week later he went back in for another checkup & they discovered the cancer was advancing rather quickly.It had spread to his bones & they then told him he had weeks to live. This was about 3 weeks ago.
Dons a great guy who is a riot to be around. He's always quick witted & always has a joke. Even being as sick as he is it hasn't slowed him down much. He's very careful not to let you know how he's really feeling. Thats not his style. He would never want you to worry about him.
My motivation for doing this is I lost my own father almost a year ago to many many years of alcohol abuse. When I was I kid I used to try n get him to slow down & change but over time I lost faith in him & quit trying to help him. I basically accepted him as he was & accepted the fact that he was killing himself. When he did die I felt like I didn't do enough, I felt guilty for giving up on him & swore from that point on I would never give
With Don & his condition now theres not much I can do to help him. I cant reverse the damage but what I can do is in his honor, use the tools available to me to raise money for future & current Cancer patients.
Hopefully when we're all old we wont have to go through what he is
How have your family reacted to this noble, yet somewhat unconventional charity event?
My wife tears up when she sees how much attention it's getting. Her Mom as well has been very emotional about it. Don he's old & really doesn't understand the internet so he doesn't really understand.
What do you aim to achieve through the tournament?
Well it's my personal belief that we are at the dawn of something thats potentially gonna be extremely large & thats online gaming. Online gamers are quickly becoming one of the largest demographics in the world & good % of them are college age or younger.
Personally as an older guy in a young persons world (online gaming) I feel a personal responsibility to ensure that I am doing my part to involve & educate todays youth of problems we all face & do my part to get them involved in productive activities & functions
Gateway for Cancer Research have been chosen as the tournaments charity, why where they chosen? And what reaction did you get from GCR when you approached them?
Actually Gateway was not the 1st choice. I went through a service that graded different charities & I had actually contacted a few others prior to Gateway & was getting no response. When I found Gateway I was excited as they also do the Walter Payton Cancer fund. As an avid Chicago Bears fan Walter was one of my childhood heroes so I was excited to work with a charity that does so much in his honor.
When I contacted them the 1st time via phone I talked with Carrie. She was very interested & excited about the idea. She didn't understand a whole lot about online gaming but seemed pretty amazed with the idea. I think the term "Really Neat" came up a few times. Shes a wonderful lady whose been most helpful thus far in accommodating whatever we need thats within her ability.
And what is it Gateway for Cancer Research work towards, their mission?
Well the one thing that stood out to me that made them different was: Gateway ONLY provides funding for cancer research (not outreach, education, etc.), which assures a focused, immediate impact on patients.
Education is important but that's basically money that goes to Doctors. Whereas Gateway funds vital clinical cancer research that vets innovative new options for those battling cancer until a cure is found.
What they do has a direct impact on the patients
Also Gateway is a charity where 99 cents of every dollar donated to Gateway funds cancer research. This ratio is unparalleled in any not-for-profit setting. To quote Carrie exactly "That other 1 cent pays for my pens & paper barely"
Sounds like they're doing a fantastic job. Hopefully it'll motivate teams to take an interest and signup - how are signups going so far?
Theres a tremendous amount of interest & I've gotten alot of promises.... I think the whole pay to play concept is something thats new to Wolf ET players so theres an unknown factor there for the teams, they're not quite sure how to go about it as they've never done it. But I think (& you will see some teams signing up this week) once a couple sign up other teams will react.
I think we've removed as much doubt about the legitimacy of the cup & for most of the teams I've talked to thats no longer an issue. It's more organizing the funds amongst themselves & getting it to one person to donate. At this point its all logistics
You mention logistics. Some teams are having issues signing up with debit cards - can you offer any solution?
There are alternatives methods some of which would hinge on trust. I have a personal paypal account that could if needed be used others have offered theres as well. I can tell you ETL is my pride & joy. I have countless hours of my life invested into the league, it's something thats very dear to me & a scamming a few people out of a $1000 & losing what I have built is not on my agenda. So yes there are other ways but it would require a certain amount of trust.
Also paypal charges an extra 3% so that would have to be accounted into the donation.
The other alternative is mailing a check or money order to Gateway. its a little slower method but none the less works
And how can interested teams signup?
Signup is in 2 parts: first the donation, links to the Gateway donation page can be found on the Cups homepage at ETL - all the instructions for donating are on that page & in the crossfire news post.
After a team makes a donation they simply select Cup Signup in the Cup menu on left side of page
Here is the direct link.
If people are inspired by what they're read, yet don't have a team or the interest to compete - can they donate directly to GCR, and how?
Absolutely & we even encourage it. It's the same link as above, they just need not put the team info in the form. Thankyou to anyone that does.
Thankyou for the interview. My thoughts and everyones from Crossfire go out to you and everyone in a similar position. Good luck with the competition - and let's get more teams signed up, and more money raised for cancer research.
Cup Homepage: http://evilterritory.com/index.php?l=12
Charity: Gateway For Cancer Research
Letter of confirmation: http://evilterritory.com/gateway.pdf
Contact: evilzombie@evilterritory.com
IRC: [irc]#evilterritory[/irc]