Extra Life Charity Challenge: College Football 25
On Saturday, September 28th, a fundraising eSports tournament in support of University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital officially kicked off! The inaugural Extra Life Charity Challenge: College Football 25 event, presented by South Slope and Rival Warz and hosted at historic Kinnick Stadium, was packed full of football action even though the Hawkeyes were on their bye week. That’s because 64 tournament participants and more than 150 spectators came together to support gamers as they competed in a single-elimination charity tournament of the new EA Sports College Football 25 game.
For an entry fee of $25, participants could sign up to play in the tournament or register as a spectator to watch the tournament or play the new college Football Game in the Free-Play area. Once registered, everyone got a link to their own customizable online fundraising page, where they would earn a tournament spot and field access for raising $200 and a locker room tour when they hit $500. We want to give a special shout out to our top three individual fundraisers who collectively raised $10,000! Congratulations to our top three overall fundraisers:
- Alex McCaslin: $5,000
- Andrew Raymer (RayCheesy): $2,605.23
- Bryan Mathew (Bru Crew): $2476.46
To amplify the Hawkeye experience, a few current football players joined in on the action! Brendan Sullivan (QB), Leshon Williams (RB), and Jacob Gill (WR) stopped by to play games with the kiddos and participants, sign autographs and take photos. Leshon even went above and beyond for our Challenge Captain, Cooper Estenson. When Cooper shared that Kaleb Johnson was one of his favorite players, Leshon promptly got Kaleb on FaceTime to chat with Cooper, effectively making Cooper’s day.
As the tournament field whittled down to our two finalists, Brandon Capper and Herve Cantrell, the Championship Game was officially set. Played on the main stage on an 85” TV and livestreamed onto the Kinnick Jumbotron, it was a hard-fought battle for the inaugural Extra Life Charity Challenge Championship. Even though the Hawkeyes weren’t playing, we still participated in the best tradition in college football, the Hawkeye Wave, after the first quarter. In the end, Herve Cantrell came out on top, winning the championship as Texas over his opponent Alabama, 30-25.
In the end, nearly $62,000 was raised for University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital through this event! Special shoutout again to South Slope and Rival Warz for supporting us on this brand-new endeavor. We also want to say a huge thank you to Best Buy, who supplied the TVs, PlayStation consoles, game copies, and their Geek Squad to help with setup, tech support, and much more. Without their support and partnership this would not have been possible!
