The Underwood Family

Clive “Legend” Underwood and Jolene “JIN” Underwood together with their two children are all gamers, they run Legend’s LAN in Pietermaritzburg and they run the clan DNA which currently has 42 members.

But the Underwood’s are not your typical gamers. They did not grow up in front of a keyboard, they could not game before they could walk – well not in Jolene and Clive’s case anyway. No the Underwood’s got into gaming less than five years ago.

Their story is intriguing because it shows the power of gaming and the fact that gaming truly is for everyone. Clive is in his early 40s and Jolene in her late 30s. Their two kids are in their teens. In fact, Jolene only got into gaming just before rAge 2009.

“Clive was the one who got into gaming first when he started lanning with friends. He then got our son Stephen “Rexxar” Underwood involved and they started playing together. I was always left out and so one morning I went into the PC room, booted up, managed to get onto an online server and started playing,” she says.

And from there Jolene got her daughter (Ashley “Trinity” Undewood) involved and now the family games most nights. Stephen plays a lot of Dota and League of Legends as well as anything new which comes out. He now plays with Impulse Gaming. Clive plays FPS games and Ashley plays Call of Duty 4 (CoD4) along with Jolene.

“What we found is Clive pulled Stephen into gaming and then I encouraged Ashley to get involved. And now we do it as a family. It’s a really good way to include different members of the family,” she says.

Clive started Legend’s LAN in Pietermariztburg and the Underwoods run DNA. The clan now has two CoD4 team and is playing StarCraft 2 as well. The team also has a girls CoD4 team and is looking for a fifth at the moment.

“We may bring on another CoD4 team this year as we are getting bigger and maybe play some Bad Company 2 as well,” she says.

Jolene is full of praise for the local gaming community even if many of the gamers are many years her junior. In fact, she says most of the gamers treat her really well and as soon as male gamers find out she is female and older they generally show her a lot of respect.

“It’s in how you manage it as well. I’m really upfront with people about what I think is acceptable and not acceptable in terms of the way gamers respond to me. But for the most part, the guys are really great,” she says.

The Underwood’s can be found on Teamspeak and IRC most nights. Jolene has written a blog about her experience which gamers can read on the Bravado website.