March 25--Michael Chaves' beard was magnificent: Jet black, thick as a Bavarian forest and a good 6 inches long, it was his trademark in the world of competitive video gaming, where he is known by the handle Flamesword.
Toward the end of last year, though, he was itching for a change and came up with an idea: He promised his legion of online fans that he would shave the beard off in exchange for donations to a worthy cause -- building a video game cart for the kids at Ann Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
His fans pledged more than $9,000 within a day, and in late December, his teammates with the suburban Chicago-based OpTic Gaming organization -- one of America's best-known pro gaming squads -- got out the clippers, shaving him clean in a video that has been watched more than 190,000 times on YouTube.
The final payoff came Tuesday, when Chaves helped to deliver the cart, equipped with an Xbox One, a monitor and games from "Minecraft" to "FIFA" to the hospital's game room.
"It's really cool," said Chaves, 25. "From everything the nurses and doctors have told us, it goes beyond gaming. It goes to a connection thing where parents can come in, game with them and have an interaction since they can't get out of the hospital."
The cart was made by the Gamers Outreach Foundation, a nonprofit that uses video games to serve needy and deserving people. Founder Zach Wigal said the hospital carts allow children to escape their problems for a little while and connect with their friends back home via Internet links.
They're also useful to distract a child who might be facing a painful or distressing procedure, he said.
"What used to take six nurses holding a kid down now only takes handing them a video game controller and saying, 'Hey, let's play "Lego Batman" while the nurse has your other arm and is doing her thing changing bandages,'" he said.
The traveling cart will be employed mostly in the hospital's intensive care unit, whose patients can't come down to the game room. But the first kid to get a crack at it was Daniel Lopez, 11, who has been in the hospital for a month with complications from a ruptured appendix.
"It's a really good system," the Aurora boy said after giving "Rayman Legends" a try. "It helps me by getting my mind off things, stuff that's going on in my life."
Chaves raised so much money that he plans to donate a second gaming cart to a hospital in his home state of New Jersey. He's also starting to look a bit scruffy again, as if the beard, which took more than a year to grow, could be making a comeback.
"I'm definitely thinking about growing it back," he said. "I'm also growing out my top hair. Somewhere in the future there definitely might be an extreme charity thing."
jkeilman@tribpub.com
