madss' mom: "Follow [your] dreams, you only live once, and you are only young once"

Despite taking an early exit from the ESL Impact Season 4 LAN Finals in Valencia, FlyQuest RED showed up to watch the final day of the season. Alongside the players, were some family members, including Marissa "madss" Dasta's mother.

Gonçalo "GoncOak" Carvalho talked with madss' mom regarding the creation of events and circuits that support women in esports, the hate that madss and other Impact players receive, and what is like to have a daughter making a career in the esports industry.

How do you feel seeing these events being created for women and supporting them in becoming more credible in the industry?

I think it's a great opportunity for these ladies to grow and it has given the next generation behind them an opportunity as well. I just hope it continues to grow and ESL will help promote them instead of trying to stifle and take away places. I just hope they will continue to look at these ladies as true competitors, just keep building on that.

You are older than most of the people here in the crowd and I want to ask you if when you were younger, did you at any time have to stop doing something because it was not seen as a "women's thing"? Do you feel like the newer generations don't have that burden and can do whatever they want?

Things have changed a lot. I don't recall ever having anything that I did stop because of that reason whatsoever. The way that things are set up now, it's just pretty much open to whoever wants to compete, which is fine, but it's also nice to see the women thrive in their own environment. There is a huge difference between when I played sports and the way things are today.

One of the biggest downsides to women having so much visibility is the hate they receive. How do you feel about that and how do you try to protect madss from that?

madss pretty much can handle herself, I don't think I really have to do much to protect her, but as a mother, I do get defensive sometimes. You just take it in stride, I tell her "you know who you are, you know what you can do, just don't let the outside interfere, just keep doing what you are doing and continue to try building on it and making yourself better, then you can prove them wrong."

Most parents don't let their kids follow the esports path. What makes you different from those parents?

Whenever she had mentioned that she was an opportunity for her, of course I had reservations about it, as with any sport, and you can look at any professional sports like NHL and NBA, but I told her she is okay to pursue, she is young enough now that she can pursue this type of field and follow her dreams, because you only live once and you are only young once. I also encourage her to have a backup plan, there's gotta be a plan B, so once, if ever, this journey ends, she has got something that she can fall back on and carry her for the rest of her life.

You are also here with your son. Is he interested in esports? How does he see his sister playing on this stage, does that influence him?

He plays as well, he doesn't play as much as he used to. He understands this much more than I do, so he helps me and explains things to me. He is proud of her, he tries his best to encourage her, and sometimes he tries to give her a little bit of insight, his input on it.

Do you think that FlyQuest RED will bounce back from the result they had here and what can we expect from madss and the rest of the team?

I do believe they will bounce back, they just need to sit back and reevaluate some of the mistakes they made and try to correct them. I think they are all talented and have the potential to be where [Nigma Galaxy and NAVI Javelins] are today, in this final. They actually have the potential to win with the talent they have, it's just a matter of them being able to focus, not let their nerves get the best of them, and just play together as a team, move forward, and don't look back.

How do you motivate and try to improve madss' performance?

I just try to encourage her, to let her know, for example, yesterday when they lost, I just told her to go back and look at what the team did and correct those mistakes and put it behind you because tomorrow's a new day and you just keep moving forward, you just keep grinding. That's the only thing you can do, you can't change the past but you can change the future.