Foosapalooza!

Posted October 4th, 2006 at 3:36 pm by Rich Ezekiel, Digital Home Products

 6 Comments / Filed in: Cool Stuff

I know everyone is still buzzing over Hack Day, but I’ve got a topic that’s nearly as dear to hackers’ hearts: FOOSBALL!

As part of a fundraising effort for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Yahoo! recently launched Foosapalooza, a month-long tournament that culminated last week in the crowning of Yahoo!’s best foosball players (well, in Northern California anyway). Our 110 teams (with names like Your Mom, The Old Guys, Foos Your Daddy, 13 Armless Men and a Dream, Peg Legs, Confooscius, and Toooooooooor!!!!!) raised more than $10,000.

Foosball is an old tradition at Yahoo!. All of our offices around the world have at least one table. This wasn’t your father’s foos tournament — we have some formidable players around here. We’re talking wristbands, sweat towels, and strict enforcement of U.S. Table Soccer Association regulations (e.g., no banging the five rod).

For the finals last week, we hosted exhibition games in the Foos Pit with some of the world’s best players, including Rob Atha from the U.K, who is ranked #2 globally. We even had a “Play the Pro” challenge. Live play-by-play commentary of the semi-finals and final game was supplied by foosball pro Mark Torres of Inside Foos.

The following teams made it to the semi-finals:

• Your Mom: Neal Sample, John Van Stralen
• The Euros: Alexandre Deve, Richard Sandenskog
• ehwb3: Daniel Wong, Vijay Raghunathan
• The Rollers: Bruce S. Lee, Jacob Rosenberg

Who won? I won’t spoil it for you — check out the video below. The winners each took home a Tornado foosball table, generously donated by a few of our engineering execs. Check out photos of the finals here and here.

Next year? “The Ocho” may be calling. Oh, and if you’d like to be the proud owner of a three-foot Foos Dude, signed by pro players, bid on our auction through October 12th.

Rich Ezekiel
Foosapalooza Tournament Master
Director of Product Management, Digital Home Products

Tagged: Video, Working at Yahoo!

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6 Comments Add your own

Zeke Cervantes | October 5th, 2006 at 11:03 am

Awesome! I play the professional and it’s great to see this type of exposure for the sport! Way to go Yahoo!

-zeke cervantes

Phil Kennedy | October 6th, 2006 at 10:22 am

Yahoo has always been a great supporter of foosball. Glad to see you now have your own tournament. Hope it becomes an annual event!

Phil Kennedy

Jim Berdahl | October 10th, 2006 at 11:36 am

I thought this was fantastic! I have two questions?

1. Are there any career oportunities at yahoo? I am an avid foosball player and would love to be your resident “put the smack-downer”.

2. Has yahoo thought about sponsoring anyone in the pro foosball tournaments? This would be great for the sport and a minimal investment on your part. Us foosers have a large network of people and want to get the sport to grow even more. (If you are interested in sponsoring a team or a few teams you could contact me and I would be happy to give you a few suggestions!…SERIOUSLY SEND ME AN EMAIL.)

Nicki Dugan | October 10th, 2006 at 1:01 pm

Jim – yes, we’re hiring! Check out openings at http://careers.yahoo.com. We’re planning Foosapalooza Part Deux for next year, so we could use some ringers. And we’ll pass along your sponsorship suggestion.

Thalia | October 16th, 2006 at 11:36 am

I like the fact that you have a blog for every category of topics and subjects, etc.

Google Reklam | October 17th, 2007 at 6:06 am

I am glad to have the change to read all. Very useful information for all who has interest in this area. I personaly had great advantage from these informations.