Coaching Philosophy: Pursue Excellence
All my life, I’ve held one fundamental belief: that with forethought and intention, gaming can be used as a platform to amplify personal development. I’ve seen gamers fail at the game of life all my life; grow up supervised only by a game console or succumb to the habit developing monetization practices of greedy game developers. At the same time, I have also seen video games bring communities together in powerful ways I never would have thought possible and expose gamers to a level of competition that has pushed them to develop a life-changing discipline.
I’ve spent my life seeking an advanced understanding of the socio-cultural, psychological, and design thinking principles that can tip the scales and unlock the transformative power of esports and video gaming to build character, strengthen communities, and unleash creativity.
Results
When I started as the Director of Esports and Head Coach at the University of Akron in January of 2018, I was tasked with using my professional esports experience and graduate training to design, implement, and manage the first-ever comprehensive collegiate gaming department.
In October, 2018 the Zips Esports department launched with the opening of 3 intentionally designed state-of-the-art gaming facilities to house our varsity, club, and recreational esports programs. In the first year these programs have engaged 7% of the student population and fostered the formation of over 14 new student organizations with 700 total members of the Club Esports Program.
As head coach of the varsity program I am responsible recruiting, trying out, selecting, and coaching 44 varsity players for 5 varsity esports teams to compete in League of Legends, CSGO, Overwatch, Rocket League, Hearthstone. All 5 teams qualified for post-season competition in their first year, four teams qualified for national playoffs, and the Akron Rocket League team qualified for the National Final Four twice; winning the National Championship in Spring 2019.
Background
As an undergraduate student of Psychology at Saint Michael's College, I initially focused on experimental psychology and research methods; my experimental research in nicotine induced amotivation has been published in Psychopharmacology and presented for the Eastern Psychological Association, the Vermont Genetics Network, and the Society for Neurosciences.
As I began to recognize the power of esports I transitioned my focus to sports psychology and began my esports career as an amateur streamer and coach of amateur League of Legends teams. Eventually I began working as a content creator, caster, and analyst in the Overwatch scene where I've had the opportunity to collaborate with organizations such as Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft, Discord, & ESL. I helped build the Competitive Overwatch League Discord community with the organization Softlocke and served as Director of Production for the Competitive Overwatch League weekly esports broadcasts.
As a graduate student of Emergent Media at Champlain College, I specialized in critical media theory and online community building. My graduate thesis, Authenticating: Genuine Expression in the Management of Video Game Communities, is one of the first academic examinations of the practice of community building in the context of the gaming industry; a multi-billion dollar business I have a personal passion for and that has implications for millions who interact with it on a daily basis.