The professional League of Legends team, Counter Logic Gaming (CLG), won the North American LCS Championship earlier this week and they met an unlikely fan.
Right before their final match, CLG met former NBA player, Rick Fox. Fox played for the Los Angeles Lakers and has won three championship titles. The unlikely meeting occurred because Rick’s son, Kyle Fox, is a huge fan of CLG. Both Rick and Kyle wanted to meet their favorite LoL team before the big match.
In an interview with Gamespot, CLG member Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng notes that Rick Fox was honored to meet the team. Doublift explains his initial reactions, “At first, I was like–what the hell? He’s honored to meet us? He’s so much more successful than any of us. All of us combined–he’s more famous, successful, and has done more.” However, Doublelift states that he figured out why Rick and his son were honored to meet the team. Doublift said that “He respects us because we put in a lot of work. Just like he put in a lot of work in basketball. Even though they’re really different, they’re similar in a lot of ways. We dedicate our lives to this one thing–and it’s really competitive.” Indeed their many parallels between professional sports and gaming.
Although the speech wasn’t recorded, Fox allegedly gave CLG a motivation prep talk before the game started. Members of CLG said Fox was motivation speaker and gave the team some solid advice.