Special Edition: Sponsor Spotlight #1
with Lemminks!
Behind the Wheels of the SEACL
Face required to be made before reading.
A spin off of the Get To Know Your SEA series, the Sponsor Spotlight aims to shed some light on the unsung heroes of sc2sea: The Donators. Without these generous souls sc2sea wouldn't have been this awesome! I'm starting this off with a Behind the Wheels of the SEACL Special^^ (not how it's suppose to work but :P).
For the first spotlight, we have one of the biggest benefactors here at SC2SEA - he is passionate about e-sports in Australia, generous with his donations, and he wants to see big events like the SEACL happen - he has already donated a total of $500 for SEACL Season 2 and $100 to sc2sea.com!! We felt it apt to feature him in this first Sponsor Spotlight, and he is none other than Sharn "JoFritzMD" Kemp!
Lemminks: Firstly, on behalf of sc2sea and the SEA community, I’d like to thank you for your generous donations to the site and the SEACL.You seemed to suddenly burst onto the scene, would you mind telling us a little about yourself.
JoFritzMD: I'm 20, I live near Sydney and jellyfish annoy me. What else is there to know about me
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I watch too much Starcraft 2 and play too little T_T
Lemminks: Anything you'd like to tell us about your current occupation?
JoFritzMD: I work at a private hospital in Sydney where I drop inanimate objects in people and then sew them up and see how long it takes for them to realise. But really I just shuffle paper, pretend to like people and chill on TeamLiquid and sc2sea.com all day. Feels good man. Feels real good
Lemminks: So I'm guessing the MD part of JoFritzMD comes from the fact that you're a Doctor?
JoFritzMD: Haha, I wouldn't go to hospitals if Doctors were like me. The name is actually a strange story from some LAN years ago. I made my name Jo Fritz or something similar to that in game because we were all making silly names.
Then the next time I went to join a game this MD mysteriously appeared on the end of my name. To this day, no one knows how it got there and so I have kept it to this day for the luck that comes with it.
Lemminks: Wow that is odd . Well how did you find sc2sea?
JoFritzMD: I found SC2SEA a few months ago when I was trying to find out information for the Sydney WCG qualifiers. I remember posting stupid questions twice in a thread and getting one response which kind of helped.
I then forgot about it for a while because it confused and intimidated me. Then Nirvana contacted me about sponsoring this tournament and I got drawn back to this site. I then realised that sc2sea.com is a kind and lovable beast and I have stayed since.
Lemminks: I noticed in one of your blogs on TL that you wanted to sponsor an ANZ/SEA tournament. Did Nirvana approach you with this proposition first or did you contact him?
JoFritzMD: Nirvana approached me fortunately because I was absolutely oblivious to the SEA scene and I had no idea about running a tournament. Now there is a far better tournament being run then I could have ever put on myself so I'm pretty happy about that. Getting approached by nirvAnA (figuratively)
Lemminks: Any particular reason why you wanted to donate in the first place?
JoFritzMD: Well I was sitting there wondering why there was only 1/2 names from the SEA community that people would know. The main reason I came up with was that there weren't that many tournaments (note my "oblivious to the scene" post before) for the SEA server. I realised that you had a fair bit of expendable income when you work a full time job while still living at home with your parents. This meant that I was able to put money towards trying to further something that I love.
Lemminks: So the Starcraft series has always been a big part of your life.
JoFritzMD: I think it was the fact that somewhere in this world people played video games professionally that made me love Starcraft. Ever since I found out about the proleague in Korea, I loved Starcraft. I remember searching YouTube for videos of bisu/stork/jaedong/flash playing and watching these terrible quality videos.
So yeah, ever since I found out about Starcraft it was a decent portion of my life, but in the last year it has gone from decent to big I think, I remember some weeks when all my nights were taken up by GSL, then the weekends where my sleeping patterns changed just for MLG. Such an amazing game.
Lemminks: In one of your blogs you mentioned a deep respect for Artosis. Is there anyone else in the esports scene that you aspire to?
JoFritzMD: I feel as if I need to put a disclaimer on those blogs haha. They were all done when I was incredibly tired and most of them are fairly exaggerated.
However that one about Artosis was probably the only one that I 100% meant at the time and 100% still mean today.
I'm not sure if there's anyone else that I see in the same way as Artosis. I have a huge respect for day[9] simply because of the amount of time he puts in to the community. The fact that he's incredibly good at the game also helps. I respect players like Huk who has put so much effort into playing the game that he has gone from being a mediocre NA semi-pro to arguably the best foreigner. That's not on the same level as how I see Artosis though. I think I might be the world's biggest Artosis fanboy.
Lemminks: Who isn't ^^, there's a reason why him and Tasteless are currently the best casting duo.
JoFritzMD: They are actually the most hilarious duo ever. 's to Tastosis
Lemminks: Aside from Starcraft 2, are there any other video games that currently demand your attention?
JoFritzMD: umm, I go through phases with video games where I'll play a game for ages and then just stop and move on to the next game.
I used to play WoW alot. Like when I wasn't working I would play 10 hours a day. It got pretty bad. So I went cold turkey on that, and played EVE Online a bit. That was fun for a little bit but then stuff happened in game which made it even more boring then EVE is usually.
I also dabbled a bit in Paradox's Grand Strategy series. They are amazing time sinks if anyone has a few weeks to sink into one game. I used to play LoL until I realised how much I hated the game. To be honest I don't think it's the game itself that is bad, it's just the legions of people who play it that are so bad. It is truely mindboggling.
Lan games are WC3, UT2004, AoE2, DoW and Jedi Academy. All of those games are incredibly fun. AoE2 was my childhood.
Lemminks: Any other hobbies you'd like to share with us?
JoFritzMD: I used to play Squash, and before that Ice Hockey. I love going to the snow, I think I was actually meant to be born as some sort of arctic creature that has Ski's for feet instead of feet.
I don't have any big hobbies other then sc2 though.
Lemminks: Yeah I love skiing too, ever been to Niseko in Japan?
JoFritzMD: I haven't been able to go skiing overseas sadly so I have to put up with Australian Snow. Skiing in japan is on my to do list though.
Lemminks: I see. Nothing but Australians in Niseko, and they say it has some of the best powder in the world
JoFritzMD: @_@ Kpop, both intriguing and depressing (when he's tired)
Lemminks: Anyway to finish off, what are your hopes for the esports scene in SEA and the world?
JoFritzMD: For SEA, I want to see more sponsors coming on board so that we can see SEA players travelling overseas to tournaments. I feel as if one of the ways to accomplish this is to put on some good tournaments and show that there is an interest.
For the world, I'm not sure. I guess I'd like to see it be more financially viable for more players to be a pro-gamer. I'm very excited to see what MLG does this year just because I feel as if they are in such a good position right now to do anything, I think that whatever it is they do it will be a major influence on how esports develops.
Lemminks: Thanks for being such an awesome interviewee Sharn, it's been a absolute pleasure talking to you. And once again thank you for donating.
JoFritzMD: You're welcome, I hope to see more of these interviews in the future. ^_^
A ladies man...FOR YOUR SOULS
Want more Sharn "JoFritzMD" Kemp?
Check out his TL Blogs here
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