Interview with Team Therapists

Team Therapists is an airsoft team based in San Diego, California, and Team Therapists is not just an airsoft team that plays, but also a team that gives back to the airsoft community. Team Therapists hosts an airsoft game at Mr. Paintball every 2nd Sunday of the month. They are some of the friendliest people you will ever meet in your life, even on the airsoft battlefield. Team Therapists was kind enough to stop by Airsoft GI on January 24th, 2013 and talk to us about the team and what they do for the San Diego airsoft community. It was very interesting to know that there are still teams out there dedicated to serve the airsoft community.

Gibian, the P.R. Person (Public Relations) was kind enough to let me interview him after the show. Although the interview was conducted via emails, Gibian gave me a lot of insight into what Team Therapist is all about. Below is the interview which was conducted via email. This interview will give you a better understanding on who Team Therapists are and what they are about! The live show which featured Team Therapists is at the bottom of this article.

GITV: Who came up with the name Team Therapists?
Team Therapists: Mongo and Bear can be credited with coming up with the name. After a night of hanging out they agreed that airsoft was a form of therapy for both of them. Something that was missing in our community was the severe lack of leadership and openness to newer players. The elitist attitude that severs newer players from ever growing was running rampant in San Diego. Our first and most important decree was to always be approachable to any player. Our second, was to help out our community in any way we could. Putting those two together, they came up with the clever name, Team Therapists.

GITV: Why do you choose the nickname that you are using?
Team Therapists: Our nicknames or “callsigns” are given by other teammates or simply whatever sticks. And sometimes, a nickname is given by the GITV audience. (I.E. Nipps) Ha!

GITV: How did you all start Airsoft?
Team Therapists: Bear and Gibi both heard about airsoft through their past paintball experience and decided to give it a shot. Mongo’s first experience was Dust Wars (02/28/10), hosted by AEX San Diego and Torrence. He was taken to his first airsoft game by his boss and that’s all it took, he was hooked ever since. Killer and U-Boat, the next members of the team, both began playing in San Diego in 2006. Chippendale’s first experience was actually our Nightmare Before Christmas Mini Op (12/11/11). He was brought by his friends and fell in love with the game. Nipps, our newest member, also came out to one of our hosted games with his friends and never turned back.

GITV: Why airsoft and not paintball?
Team Therapists: Tom and Gibi both played professional paintball in San Diego and felt that it was turning into something that they didn’t want to be a part of. Each member has a different reason from wanting to play airsoft instead of paintball. Some enjoy the variety of weapons to choose from while others enjoy the realism of the weapons. The variations of games that can be played is a significant draw for most of us but what we all can agree on is the camaraderie we all feel from playing together.

GITV: Any prior military experiences? Which Branch? What MOS?
Team Therapists: Mongo is an active duty Gunners Mate, in the United States Navy. He has proudly served for eight years. Yeti, an inactive member that had to move back East was also a Gunners Mate in the United States Navy. He was honorably discharged last year after serving for five years.

GITV: I heard you are very active in the Airsoft Community in San Diego, could you tell us more about it?
Team Therapists: We host every second Sunday of the month at Mr. Paintball USA. Rain or shine, we’ll be there! We are driven to provide a fun and safe environment for the San Diego airsoft community. Our games are known for creating a ton of trigger time. We like to maximize the amount of playing and minimize the amount of dead time walking to respawn. The games we organize are mostly field games and as such, we’re blessed to have the massive expanse and diverse terrain of the Mr. Paintball backfield. That terrain and our creativity keeps our games fresh, fun and original. Some games will have a Milsim feel to them while others will have a simple run and gun aspect.

We recently (02/10/13) hosted a game in which one of our good friends and long time airsofter proposed to his girlfriend at the most climactic moment of the game. He approached us exactly a month before the proposal and ask us if we could come up with a game that ended with him proposing to his girlfriend, who is also a regular in the San Diego airsoft community. After a few secret dinner meetings and a whisper in the right ear we put together a game that would suit his needs perfectly. The day came and everything worked out fantastically. He sprung out from hiding and proposed to her with an audience of 160 or so players. Best part of the story, she said “yes”. We were blown away that they would let us be a part of that magical moment in their life that they will remember forever!

GITV: What are your occupations? Do you guys have experience in real firearms?
Team Therapists:
Mongo is a Gunners Mate in the United States Navy and as such he is in charge of any at all weapon systems on a Navy vessel. That will go from a 9mm to a three story size missle.
Bear is a Federally Contracted Detention Officer and is required to carry a duty weapon.
Killer is an Arborist and works for the city of San Diego.
U-Boat is in training to become an EMT and has done various security work. He and U-Boat both have gone on many hunting trips out of state.
Chippendale works at a very popular game studio that will remain unnamed.
Nipps got his BA degree at Southwestern College and played college football for a little while. He currently works at Home Depot and is planning to enroll into SDSU next semester and pursue a degree in Criminal Justice.
Gibi is a Single Subject English Major at SDSU and hope to teach High School English. He works at a lasertag facility on the weekends and as a summer Camp Counselor during the season.

GITV: How well each member works together on the field?
Team Therapists: We jibe very well on the field and simply put, it’s because we all have a similar outlook and personality. We’re not just an airsoft team, we’re a family. We call each other brother and are huge parts of each others lives. We hang out on a regular basis and go out to eat and celebrate life together. Our girlfriends become friends with our other member’s girlfriends. Often times people ask us for applications to join the team, or if there’s a recruiting process that people can go through to join and we have to say that there isn’t, we don’t do things like that. It’s not about the gear you have, the gun you shoot, how well you play or what operations you’ve attended, what matters to us is the caliber of person. If we like you, and most importantly, the person that you are, we ask you to join the family.

GITV: How many team members are active currently?
Team Therapists: We currently have seven members active…Mongo, Bear, Gibi, Killer, U-Boat, Chippendale, and our newest member, Nipps. Yeti, is an inactive member but still very part of the team.

GITV: Do you plan to make airsoft more popular in your Area? If So, what plan do you have make airsoft more popular?
Team Therapists: It’s been our plan from the get-go to make the sport more popular. That’s why we decided to organize games at our home field on a regular basis. We want to do away with the elitist attitude that is so common in airsoft so newer players have a chance to ask questions and play confidently. Rain or shine, we’ll be at Mr. Paintball every second Sunday of the month. And every few months or so we organize a larger scale game we like to call “Mini Ops”. Normally, our second Sunday hosts are three or four, hour or so long fields games. The games are well thought out with respawn rule and objectives but they lack a storyline and defined characters. Our “Mini Ops” have what our normal hosted day lacks. We create a unique and fresh storyline with intractable characters and objectives that are not only fun but ever changing. We generally average 160 players per hosted game, but our “Mini Ops” easily break 200 players. We’re currently in the process of planning another “Mini Op” and are shooting for it to be the biggest yet!

GITV: What bother you and your team the most on the field?
Team Therapists: There are two things that really bother us on the field, hot headed players and older, more experienced airsofters refusing to help newer players. Airsoft is a delicate sport and can be very easily ruined and those two factors are what generally cause that ruin.

GITV: How does it feel to be the first Airsoft Team ever featured on GITV?
Team Therapists: It’s was an incredible honor to have been asked to head up to the Airsoft Gi studios to film a segment. We’re all fans of Airsoft Gi and watch it religiously on youtube, it was so surreal to walk into the room where it’s all shot and see it in real life. We were overcome with both a feeling of familiarity and mystery all at the same time. How the stars aligned themselves that day we’ll never know, but we were dumbstruck with the opportunity given to us by Airsoft Gi. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.

If you want to see the live show which featured Team Therapists, Here it is!