After his removal from the now extinct Check-Six team last September, Shaun "Hostile" Catron has found himself without a place to call home. Despite filling in for two of United States' best teams, he has yet to be offered a permanent spot on either. For the time being, Catron has become, "America's Ringer."

Catron had a typical start in competitive gaming. He worked his way up the local LAN scene in southern California, honing his skills by playing with some of today's top players from the area. His first found fame and success in with a team you may have heard of, iDemise. Their greatest achievement came at the CPL 2005 summer event. Although the international competition at that event was diminished with the schedule overlap with ESWC, their fifth place finish was still just as sweet.

"I'd never been on a CPL worthy team before or even imagined going to CPL. Long story short, me, desire, eng, supply, and pham flew to Texas without a hotel room or computers or anything and came back with 5th place and a s***load of respect from a lot of people. Everybody at the tournament overlooked us and it showed. Although the competition wasn't as heavy as it could have been, it was all of our first major tournaments and we made a statement, that we could do it."

Their road to success and fame was a rocky one, one that had an especially rough beginning. A year before the CPL event, iDemise was working their way up in CAL-Main, and hit a wall when Catron was banned for cheating.

He explains, "Four years ago, I was a really immature, s***talking – don't give a f*** about anyone kind of kid. Basically, my team thought one of their members was cheating, so I cheated. It was four years ago. I wish I didn't do it I suppose, but it hasn't affected me trying to get into any type of team or do anything I wanted. The only people that really remember it are you GotFraggers."

iDemise was not dismayed by Catron's suspension, instead the team surged ahead. They moved up to CAL premier the next season, even declining invites to move onto the highest level of play in CAL. That was because local LAN tournaments restricted CAL-Invite teams, and iDemise wanted to keep competing and winning them. But after their 5th place CPL finish, the team moved onto loftier goals.

After CPL, iDemise was picked up by the Excello gaming organization, where they remained for only a month, only to switch to the newly formed Jax Money Crew. While under JMC, Catron experienced the heights of his career.

"We traveled to Paris, and I got to see a whole side of the world I really never thought I would. We also played in the CGI Event; it was a long way from the four small team invite tournaments we played in before. But, man, that was such a fun weekend.”

Shortly following Paris, Catron was removed from the JMC team, trading places with David "zid" Chin from United5. He eventually left that United5 team for Aggression, only to return to the United5 organization ten days later when they picked up his new team. While Catron remained with United5 for a few more months, the team never reached the level of play they expected, resulting in roster changes and the removal of Catron.

However, fate would have it that his former iDemise teammates were back together again, and he rejoined the team. The newly reformed iDemise was soon picked up by the Check-Six organization. That team would grow to become one of the top three teams in the United States in Counter-Strike 1.6. However, after a disappointing finish at this year's WCG US finals, the team saw the need to release Catron once again. This time, they were unable to find a suitable replacement and the team withered away.

Currently, Catron has been without a team for four months, the longest gap in between teams in his career. During that time, he has rang for both eMg and x3o. He helped eMg to an unexpected 4th place finish at WCG, and 6th place at Extreme Masters LA. After, he played with x3o at Kode5 US, finishing 2nd, behind eMg, losing two maps to one in a best of three format.

Although he has helped several teams to solid finishes, he still finds himself without a team. One must take a deeper look at Catron as a player and person, as well as the state of the American Counter-Strike scene to determine what is keeping him from finding a new home.