Mean & Green Esports: CEG Sits Down and Talks with UNT’s Esports Director and Athletes

Cutting Edge Gamer is proud to announce that we are sponsoring UNT esports. Go Mean Green! To kick off our sponsorship, we’ve interviewed Dylan, the UNT esports coach, along with some of the players about their experience in college esports.

You can keep up to date with the team via their Twitter and view their streams on the UNTEsports Twitch channel.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us on your collegiate esports program. How long has your university had a varsity esports program and how long have you been the director of the program?

UNT esports has had a varsity program for 5 years. Just about as long as I’ve been working there!

Is it fair to say you are also the program’s coach? Or do you have paid coaches at your school too?

I typically explain my role as an athletic director and that is often the easiest way sum it up given the scope of what we have going on our campus with our competitive side as well as our broadcast and marking side of our operations. UNT has three paid coaches that oversee our competitive teams.

How did you get involved with the esports program? Were you already at the university in a different role when you became the director and helped develop the program?

A bit of luck, a vision, and an odd collection of skill sets allowed me to walk into this world when UNT posted a job opening to design and then implement a competitive esport program. I had just moved from Colorado after grad school following my now spouse after she got a job down in DFW and was looking for opportunities when this dream job showed up on my radar. Been here ever since.

Which games do you compete in?

UNT esports competes in Rocket League, Overwatch, League of Legends, and soon Women’s Valorant!

How’s the season going by the way?

It’s been going swell! Our Rocket League team has qualified for CRL for 5 years in a row, and while we didn’t make playoffs we have been participating in quite a few leagues this spring to keep us busy. Our League team qualified for playoffs for two years in a row. Most of our teams are now in the trial phase as we scout out new students coming to UNT to prep for Fall 2023. Our marketing team has launched a new twitch podcast called the CHØ Show that goes over the weekly matches, replays, and gets a community leader at UNT to talk about what they do in the campus gaming community!

As director, I’m sure recruiting is a big part of what you do as you have so many different games you compete in. I’m sure our audience would want to know what is involved in recruiting. How do you find your athletes and about how many do you recruit per year?

Oh gosh that is the question isn’t it? Our recruits come from a wide verity of sources. Some students are just go getters and email or directly message me on Discord. Others we find from social media like twitter LFT’s (“Looking for Teams”) or Instagram. What’s been really interesting is several recruitment platforms that operate similar to traditional athletics that bring top recruit players to us! I generally have 5-10 openings per year depending on if students are graduating or not.

Is there a good high school esports ecosystem that you can draw from? Or do the athletes actively reach out to you with their game play portfolio or do you reach out to them?

Texas esports has grown significantly over the years, it’s been awesome to see various orgs and schools pop up and do cool things in the space. I’d say it’s a mix of us finding students we want to reach out too and students and coaches/recruiters reaching out to us.

Is there anything in particular that you look for in their game play?

Our coaches look for several primary factors including mechanics, team communication, and your ability to handle pressure. I look at your GPA, your socials, and how you handle yourself professionally in an interview. It’s one thing to be good at the game, but it’s another thing to be a representative for our institution and what it stands for.

Another aspect that I’m sure our audience will be interested to know: Do your athletes receive partial or full scholarships or any other benefits from the university?

Our students receive partial scholarships but keep whatever they win from events and tournaments as a scholarship payout.

What are some of the bigger challenges confronting your esports program today? What about esports in general?

It’s a double-edged sword, but the space is developing rapidly and the benchmark for what cut it for a supported program keeps getting pushed by very talented and dedicated people in this industry. It means it keeps folks like me on their toes to make sure I’m still competitive and provide the right amount of support for my students. At the end of the day though, so long as we’re providing opportunities for students to compete and push themselves to learn we’re on the right track.

I also think there’s still a bit of growing pains that separate us from traditional sports. There’s still a fair number of teams that are managed by club programs and that forces developer’s hand in making league structures that don’t often benefit established programs. Advanced scheduling is a rallying cry phrase I’ve heard often in my time with other directors, that’s very needed in this space.

That’s about it for our questions and thank you for your time. Final thoughts: Do you have anything else to add that you would like to add?

We really appreciate the support Cutting Edge Gamer has provided UNT Esports and the students in the program! #GMG!

Hi there and thank you for taking the time out of your busy school and Esports schedule to talk to us about your collegiate esports experience. What year are you and in which games do you compete?

I am a senior and I compete in league of legends

How has the esports athletic experience been so far?

The esports experience is over for me and I can say I had a good time playing competitive esports and found new friends, however would say I am not happy with the results.

Be honest: How many hours a week do you say you practice and compete?

When I was still competing I would have team practice 9 hours a week then a match at the end of the week, Solo practice is hard to gauge but I would usually play around 4-6 games of solo q (“solo queue”) every weekday and watch most pro matches so if I had to be honest I would say I would spend roughly 10-12 hours a day looking and refining my league of legends skills and knowledge while I was playing.

What are your training methods and how do you get ready for tournaments? Do you study streams of your competition?

My training methods are play a lot of soloq of every champ I think my team will want me to play, when it comes to game days I always listen to a few specific songs to get me into a good mood for the games, and before the games I go in a custom game and don’t leave till I farm 50 cs in a row without missing one. Then the other aspect of my training is watching pro-matches and pro-players to see what they do and what new things they are coming up with through pro builds and stuff like that.

When’s the competition season, is it in the spring or fall or both?

The competition season is truly year round for league of legends there is always amateur stuff to play in, however for CLOL in fall there is a pre-season tournament called the fall warm-up and in the spring is where the season takes place from around February-March till you are knocked out.

How are you doing so far this year?

The team this year had great growth, we had a top laner who improved tremendously and a mid laner swap to support and learn the role, we had many ups and downs but I am happy with how we grew through the year.

Let’s go back to before you started your collegiate athletic career. When did you first start gaming?

I first started gaming from as far back as I can remember, i was told by my parents back when I lived in Puerto Rico I would play on my uncle Nintendo 64 I think, I’m not sure which one it was I must’ve been like 1 or 2.

At what point did you realize “hey I can do this in college”?

I realized I could do this in college when I found out they had a team, I had no idea college esports was really an option at UNT.

What was the recruiting process like at your university? Did the director reach out to you or did you actively approach them?

The recruiting process for me was I googled UNT esports league of legends and found a reddit post, and I cant remember her name but I asked a mod on the subreddit if I could get a tryout and she said to fill out the form she sent me and I would hear back in march. I then tried out and made the team.

Has doing esports changed the way you play games in your free time?

Playing esports only changed how I play league of legends, it made me better at the game and I learned a lot to improve myself in the game. However I still play other games and it never impacted how I played those.

That’s about it and let’s wrap it up with one final question: Think back to when you were gaming before college and compare that to what you know now after being a college esports athlete. What words of advice or tips would you give high schoolers to help them land a spot on a collegiate esports team?

I think that every aspiring collegiate esport athlete should have an open mind to learn more about the game and not assume they are the best nor do they know everything. This can apply to life as well but it helps a lot when trying to make it onto a team and to understand why teammates do what they do in game, instead of getting angry with them.

Hi there and thank you for taking the time out of your busy school and esports schedule  to talk to us about your collegiate esports experience. What year are you and in which games do you compete?

Junior and Rocket League

How has the esports athletic experience been so far?

Love it. Being able to compete with good friends is so much fun

Be honest: How many hours a week do you say you practice and compete?

We have 4 hours of scheduled practice but we also play randomly throughout the week. Competing varies but the weeks that we have tournaments can have days that last multiple hours.

What are your training methods and how do you get ready for tournaments? Do you study streams of your competition?

Training involves playing the game on your own and with your team to stay consistent in the game. Tournament preparation is mostly studying our own gameplay rather than our opponent’s gameplay.

When’s the competition season, is it in the spring or fall or both?

We compete in both fall and spring.

How are you doing so far this year?

Pretty well, we’ve dropped out early in some tournaments but overall we have improved a lot.

Let’s go back to before you started your collegiate athletic career. When did you first start gaming?

My dad put me on Halo 1 when I was 2 and I’ve been playing games ever since.

At what point did you realize “hey I can do this in college”?

My freshman year of college I found the untrl discord server and the more I played the game the more I realized that I can do this as in school.

What was the recruiting process like at your university? Did the director reach out to you or did you actively approach them?

I tried out through the discord server and then met everyone.

Has doing esports changed the way you play games in your free time?

Yes, it can sometimes be less fun when you’re playing for improvement instead of for fun but its still really enjoyable.

That’s about it and let’s wrap it up with one final question: Think back to when you were gaming before college and compare that to what you know now after being a college esports athlete. What words of advice or tips would you give high schoolers to help them land a spot on a collegiate esports team?

Enjoy the grind or else it becomes a chore and don’t have an ego.