 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today, we're talking about coaching collegiate eSports in Hawaii. With me are University of Hawaii eSport coaches, Janelle McQuill and Justice Lee, welcome gentlemen. Hello. Hello. Thanks Catherine. All right. Having us on the show. Thank you. Yeah. So JJ, what game do you coach? I coach two games right now. So it's League of Legends and Rainbow Six Siege. Those are my two primary focuses of games right now. We have other teams as well. I mainly just support them or coach them if I can. Terrific. And Justice, what are you coaching? So I coach the Overwatch team and just the Overwatch team, yeah. How are you guys doing this last season? Overwatch team did pretty good this last season. We actually captured the University of Hawaii's first championship for eSports. We closed it out of the Aquatid Cup in December, season one. And we won that tournament. Beyond that tournament, we also went 27 to 21-7 losses across all of our matches last semester, which is, again, a record, at least for the Overwatch team. I'm not sure about the program as a whole, but anyways, we had a lot of success this past semester. Terrific. So JJ, how did you get involved in coaching? It was actually through a friend who told me about that he was part of the League of Legends team. I was like, oh, can I help out? Is there any way I can coach? And I got in contact with Kevin. He gave me the opportunity to coach the League of Legends team, and now here I am. So it's been an amazing ride. And I understand you're going to be doing some youth coaching as well coming up. Yeah. I just recently got hired by a startup company called Vanta Leagues, and they're looking for coaches to coach their League of Legends, Valorant, or Rocket League teams. Right now I can only coach League of Legends as the only game I'm really good at. And the youth has been between ages 9 to 14. All right. So, Justice, how did you get into coaching? So I have a buddy at UH who's an RA, and he happened to be friends with someone that was on or part of the eSports program. He knew that I liked Overwatch, and he knew that I liked coaching. And so this was back in August 2019. He told me, hey, the Overwatch team could use a coach, and I thought that was a great opportunity. So I ended up talking to who was in charge of the Overwatch team at the time, and he brought me on board. And kind of since that time, I've slowly taken over more and more of the team until we're at where we are, where we're at today, where I'm the head coach. So that's how I got involved at UH. All right. Let's show the UH video. Hi. I'm JJ. I'm the coach and the project manager for our Rainbow Six Siege team here at UH eSports. This semester, we participated in the R6-facing Collegiate Championship series that's sponsored by Ubisoft. This season, we only went 4-1, almost made it to the quarterfinals, but we actually did pretty well in our team in our division, because we went against the top teams in our groups. Next semester, I hope that our team can make it to the championship and win it all. Hi. My name is Darren. My IGN is Delta Yankee, and my role is a support slash flank watch. My two main operators are Nomad and Mazzy. What I like about the team is that we are able to communicate as a group and work together to achieve one common goal of winning games. A memorable moment I had this semester was when we won our first game against Kettering University. It really helped us to solidify our morale throughout the season and also helped us focus on what we need to work on really forward. Okay, so let's get into what exactly you do, and JJ, why don't you tell me about what a typical schedule of practice sessions and game days are for you? Okay, so this goes for League of Legends or Rainbow Six Siege, but typically we do a team meeting, we talk about what are we going to be doing for the week, what team we're going to be facing, and how are we going to prepare for the week, and I basically give out a lesson plan of what we're going to accomplish for today's practice, and I tell them we got to execute this, and so we get on and we play. The most important thing, whether we win or lose our scrims or practices is that as long as they complete their objectives and their personal goals, then we'll be ready for the week. For game days, I make sure that they're on at least 15 minutes, preferably 30 minutes on, just to talk about what we should expect for today for the day's game, and how we should expect the enemy opponent to react, and hopefully we win. So, Justice, are you doing anything different than that? Not really. I mean, I set a practice agenda before every practice. We practice two to four times a week sometimes, depending on if we're in a tournament, and the first part of practice is usually some kind of mental training, so we have various meditation techniques that we use, or other sort of like cognitive games, I guess, if you will, that we play online that just, you know, help us keep that mental edge, and then we just, we scrimmage, we play games. Usually we have certain things that we're working on during practice. So for example, this past week, a new patch came out and we're working on learning a new composition. For game days, yeah, it's kind of similar. We get on about 45 minutes, half an hour before to warm up, and then, you know, we get to it. OK. So, JJ, what are the challenges you have in coaching young players? One of the major challenges that I could think of right now, it's mostly just making sure that we all get together, especially right now in the pandemic. Some people have personal issues they have to attend to, or school they have to work towards with, so that's totally fine. I try to do my best to ask everybody's availability, and that we play or practice based on everyone's availability. So that's the main challenges with these players so far. Everyone is, you know, really willing and motivating to put in the time whenever they can. And yeah, that's basically the most challenging part that I have. It's just the time. So, Justice, have you faced more challenges during the pandemic than you did before? Yeah, I would say that's fair to say. Players have had to take more time off during this, you know, pandemic. But, you know, when I started this position in August 2019, I was completely remote working for UH. I was still in my undergrad program at Concordia University Irvine. So I was, I'm kind of used to this setting in terms of working completely remote with the players. So I think, you know, we've been lucky in that sense that there hasn't been a ton of adjusting on that side of things. OK, and so how do you, gentlemen, maintain a level of game knowledge that allows you to help your players? What do you, what do you think, Justice? So for me, a lot of that comes from playing the game. So an overwatch, I'm like a decently high ranked player in that game. And so just playing for me kind of keeps me, you know, sharp and focused. In addition to that, I watch a ton of pro play footage. So, you know, matches they might have played recently. And this is especially true if we're, you know, trying to learn something new. I'll always watch players that are better than we are at what they do and then try to take those things and implement it into, you know, what we're doing as a team. And how about you, JJ? Very similar, except I'm not a high level player. I'm not a high mechanical skill player, but I do enjoy playing the games that I do play. I try to read up the same thing, read the patch notes, watch pro players see how they do differently, see how they play and then try to implement that to our own players. So it's very similar to what justice do in both League of Legends and Rainbow Six Siege. And let's show the photo of the UH team. Gentlemen, why didn't you tell me about this? So this is actually the Rainbow Six Siege team that I met up with last December. I believe we made a video, the video that was shown previously. I gathered some of my R6 members to, you know, hopefully take a photo up just to, you know, meet each other socially distance, of course, and make this video so that we can generate some hype with our team. Sure. And there aren't that many photos, I understand right now, because people aren't getting together. Yeah, that's the best we can do right now, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so JJ, how do you think eSports coaching compares with traditional sports coaching? I think one of the main, or not always the main differences, but for me, the traditional coaching and with eSports coaching, you're always going to be there for your players. You're always going to like talk to them one-on-one, whether they struggle with, you know, the sport or the game or even outside of that, right? Like, in my opinion, viewing traditional coaching and eSports coaching, you're there to guide your players, you're there as a mentor, you're there to lead them in, you know, whatever sport you're in. And of course, the biggest difference is the physical aspect, you know, between eSports and traditional coach or traditional sports. But the role as a coach, in my opinion, is still the same. Sure. And I understand that there are some teams, professional teams that do physical training as well as training on the on the games. Do you do any of that? Right now, we can't force any of our students or players to just exercise. I mean, we would love to do that if especially, you know, after this pandemic, we would love to have some sort of some form of athletic program for them to just at least stay healthy, stay fit. But right now, all we can do is just tell them, you know, do your best, eat healthy, you know, try to do some warm up exercises at your at your own house or wherever it's safe for you. Sure. And so, Justice, do you have any thoughts on that about the difference between eSports coaching and traditional coaching? Yes, I mean, contrary to what a lot of people think, I think they're remarkably similar. So I've also coached volleyball and basketball before. And there are a lot of ideas that carry over between the two. Obviously, the skills are totally different. But really, what I've been learning is that, you know, the role of the coach beyond just teaching players how to do, you know, XYZ is kind of keeping the spirit of the team alive and going. And so, you know, when I'm trying to learn more about coaching and figure out better ways to do things, I look to traditional sports coaches a lot. So I've looked at people like Phil Jackson, like John Wooden, for advice on, you know, how to better coach my players. And I found that their ideas map perfectly onto eSports just as they did with traditional sports. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And so, have you also, you know, kind of encouraged your players to do any kind of physical training, Justice? Yeah, I definitely have. And I'm lucky that I'm actually pretty good friends with one of my players. So he's actually come over to my house and trained with me before. I'm very into, you know, fitness and healthy living and all that. But my my intention is that, you know, once the program gets a little bit bigger and the pandemic is over, we're lucky that our eSports facility is right across from the gym on campus. And so when we, you know, we can meet in person in addition to just normal practices, right, where we're playing the game. I'd love to get the players in the gym and just doing, you know, just simple stuff to keep them in shape because the better you are physically, the better you feel physically, the better that you'll play in the game. Sure. And why do you think that is, Justice? Well, part of it, I think, is that just the physical or being physically active, you know, helps keep your mind sharp, right? And it also helps your mental, just your mental state as well. I know personally for me, you know, keeping active really helps me just stay focused on the things that I need to do. If there's a day, you know, that I was supposed to work out and I miss it for whatever reason, I can tell that I just I feel kind of off, you know. So I kind of use physical activity as a way to keep me pushing forward and meeting my goals in other aspects of my life as well. And so, Justice, do you also also think that a healthy diet plays a role in better play? Yeah, absolutely. So to kind of just, I guess, an example of that is I was talking with some of my other coaches that I work with the other day and one of them brought up this study that they found that where people's reaction times were significantly better for people who ate a healthy diet compared to those that didn't. And I thought that was quite important for, you know, us as eSports coaches to just encourage our players to eat healthy because if they do, you know, reaction time is a pretty it's a pretty big deal, especially in a very fast paced game like Overwatch. So if I can continue to encourage my players to do those things, then, you know, theoretically speaking, they're going to perform better in game. And that's, you know, perfect. Plus, I would think if you have sugar or something that it could cause you to have like the afternoon slump or like you could have, you know, some reaction in terms of attention to what you eat. Yeah, that's very true. On on tournament days where I know that our players are going to be playing a lot of games in one day, I always encourage them to make sure that they're eating enough food and drinking enough water, especially on that day, because I know if they don't, you know, we start to taper off in terms of our performance, the later the day goes. So yeah, you're definitely right. Sure. And speaking of reaction time, so J.J., I'll pose this question to you. Hawaii, we have some latency issues because I understand just because of our location as the most remote island islands in the world. So what's what are the challenges in coaching in Hawaii? Like you said, Catherine, the biggest challenges for us is, you know, the internet issues, the latency issues, just because the closest service we have for any game, in my opinion, is the West Coast, which is mainly in California. And we already struggle with getting, you know, latency issues or even just connecting with in game. So there is some sort of like lag input with the game. It's like very, very minuscule, but it does affect the players. And another thing that's a big challenge for here in Hawaii is trying to find scrims or any practices against any other teams in the mainland. Most of the time they're asking for, like, you know, night time or like, you know, 9 p.m. Pacific time or even like Eastern time or Central time. Most of the time we can't make those because, you know, my players availability just doesn't allow it. So most of the time, yeah, we have to either play early in the day in order to practice or we just practice in-house. So if you have a tournament that is just Hawaii, that everyone is in Hawaii and so everyone faces the same latency issues because the servers are on the mainland, could it be fair that way? Oh, definitely. I think in tournaments will be, you know, would be like the best. I wouldn't say the best, but the main goal right now for the UH Esports program, you know, we just like the football team or any other athletics program here at UH, we can send teams here. We can compete or we can send our teams to the mainland and compete in LAN tournaments as well. So at least I would say the battleground or the field is even or fair. So, you know, we're all in the same location. We're all playing on LANs. Sure. And Justice, do you have any thoughts regarding Hawaii as a locale? Yeah, I mean, I would echo, you know, JJ's ideas there that the problem with coaching in Hawaii is finding people to scrimmage. I talk about it quite a bit that I really disliked the fact that Esports has such a heavy East Coast bias. Every time you look for a scrimmage or matches, all of it is in the East Coast time zone for some reason. Don't know why. It's just the way that Esports is. And I wish it wasn't that way because I know West Coast teams, you know, even though that those that aren't in Hawaii would love to play around their time zone instead of East Coast all the time. So yeah, that's definitely a problem. As far as tournaments coming to Hawaii, I mean, come on, what team does not want to travel to Hawaii to play in a tournament? Like, let's be real, this is paradise. So sure. Yeah. And the weather is great today. It's a beautiful day and, you know, I mean, I do intend to have and I have had at least one show each quarter with Hawaii people. And, you know, I do think that since we're think tech Hawaii, we do need to promote our own playing ground here. But we do have a question from a viewer. Let me see. How does the U.H. Esports team compare to other states team, i.e. is Hawaii more aggressive? I'll start with you, Justice. More aggressive. OK, so I'm trying to think play style here. That's a that that's a really tough one to answer. If I had to kind of summarize the difference between the team that we have here, compared to those that we play in other states, a lot of it just comes down to the culture of our team. And I think that's just because of most of the players that we have on the team are from Hawaii. And so if you ask them, right, the team that we have together feels very much like a family. All of us are really good friends with each other, even outside of the game. And I think that that type of a culture is something that's hard to find if you're working with, you know, a team from another state where people might not be very geographically close to each other. Sure, and we're definitely geographically close to each other, those people on Oahu, anyway. So do you have any thoughts on that, JJ? I would say the same that Justice just said, you know, there is, you know, a community, a tight knit family sense of culture here within the within all the players, right? Like, you know, I think just that sense of community and that sense of trust that we have in each other, that, you know, that definitely benefits us in these tournaments. Sure, yeah. Yeah, I mean, everyone is Ohana here. That means family. So, JJ, how did the transition from in-person coaching to online, you know, how was that with the pandemic? So in the beginning, we did have some practices at the I-Lab, which you might know, which is close by to the Royal Rec Center. But we were already having online practices before the pandemic. So we would only use the I-Lab, you know, when everybody's available or if they can. But it's with the transition, it was more like a hiccup, in my opinion, because we were already practicing online. You know, most of the players already have their own PCs or their own laptops to play these games on into practice. And so for us, it was just a minor of like, OK, so we can't play in person. OK, let's just everyone get hop on your PC or your laptop and then let's go play. So that's it really wasn't that much of a bump for us personally. But it did. And, you know, of course, we all wanted to meet up together, see everybody in person, but we can't right now. So the best we can do is just stay home, play together online. Sure. And, Justice, how has your experience been on that? Yes, ours was quite interesting, because, you know, we were in full swing at the start of last year right in the middle of a tournament and we had a good thing going. The pandemic hits, we ended up having to take a month off. So I think we took all of April off and then we picked things back up in May. And we we were kind of on a tear from then. We went from May to December last year. Not many breaks were playing in tournaments most of the way there. But really, I think, you know, when the pandemic happened, it was interesting because it actually initially opened up. My player schedules a lot more than usual because a lot of them were at home. So that was kind of interesting, like we could have practices a little more. So, you know, pandemic happened, but there were good things that came out of it, at least for our team. Sure. So what tournaments have you all been playing? How about you, Justice? OK, so last let's see, last year we started off in August with the UCLA Summer Invitational, which was a fun tournament. A lot of good teams on the West Coast that were there played in that one. Then we also played in a couple seasons of TESPA. So they had their preseason last year, two, two different set, I guess, seasons, if you will. That's three. And then we also played in this league called the UGC League. Ended up taking second place in that one. And then finally, we played in the Aquatic Cup and I was the one that we won. So we progressed, we got better as the semester went along. But yeah, those were the tournaments for last semester. How about how about you, JJ? So for the League of Legends team, so our varsity team is actually playing in the CSL Collegiate Star League that is partnered with Riot, the official publisher for League of Legends. So, you know, they also played in the Mountain West Division, which is pretty amazing for the gold team, the one that I coach as well. We participate in a lot of amateur tournaments like MetaShift. Right now we're going to be part of Ryzen tournaments for the Rainbow Six Siege team. Right now we're the only tournament that we can participate in is the FASIC Collegiate Tournament, which is the one that is officially partnered with the publisher of the game, Ubisoft. Sure. And so, JJ, how do you manage your players, especially from a remote? Anything different than what we've already talked about? Not really anything different. You know, mainly we just get on Discord. You know, if I ever need to talk to a player one-on-one, I just go and hop on a call with them, talk about either their gameplay or if they need any help outside of this. So it's, yeah, you know, because of the pandemic, it really emphasized for us to stay online. And, you know, we were already online before this. So it's really not that much change, to be honest, since the pandemic. And if anything, I was able to be there more from our players now because they're available, just like what Justice said. So, Justice, do you also use Discord for that purpose? Yes, absolutely. Best thing to use. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so how does it work? So, Justice, how does Tryouts do Tryouts work? Tryouts, that's funny. So we actually have Tryouts starting next week for this semester. But yeah, so the way that it works is we usually, you know, put out the word on social media, send, try to send an email if possible, and also get the word out on all our Discord servers. Then we have, you know, prospective players fill out a form. We look at the form information and then we reach out to them and let them know, hey, this is the date we want you to come in and try out. And that's kind of how that process works. And in terms of player evaluation, most of it falls on me, but I also get input from my players as well. And how about you, JJ? It's actually the same, basically. You know, we try to reach out to as many people as we can. Students, especially social media, fill out a form. I mainly me and another coach for the League of Legends teams, we evaluate their performance. Mainly it's not mainly if they can like, you know, I'll play their team. It's mainly their communications and how they're able to handle, you know, in a stressful situation, whether it's good or bad, right? So that's the main component for us. Like I don't mind. I their mechanical skill is not all about that, right? It's all about how can they play as a team? Can they play as a team? Are they coachable? These are a lot of the factors that I look for as a player and it's very important in the team environment, right? Sure. And are there any scholarships that UH offers to esport athletes? Either one of you. Presently, we don't have any available scholarships. And that's a it's a bummer because we should have been starting to offer those this past semester. But with the pandemic happening and budget cuts across the university, that was not possible. The hope is that, you know, that should be happening within the next year, maybe two years. But we are hopeful to start extending scholarships to players because they deserve it. They've been putting in a lot of hard work. Sure. And JJ, what's the future of UH esports? Well, in my opinion, it's pretty bright, you know, with Sky and Kevin leading the way. And we have a lot of support, especially with our president, President Lassner and from state legislator like Senator Wakai. It's pretty bright, you know, and we have a lot of talent here in Hawaii. And, you know, if the more recognition we get from, especially from the mainland and the more funding or partnerships we can get, we can become one of the best collegiate esports program in the country. Sure. And I just want to ask, Justice, are there players from the mainland that are coming to UH to play at all? So no one that's, you know, specifically coming from the mainland to here to play. But as far as on my team, I have two players that aren't from here. So one is from Southern California. The other one is he's in Colorado. He's actually been practicing with the team from there. So time difference in everything. But as of right now, there are no people that are coming specifically from the mainland to UH just to play esports. Obviously, when scholarships open up, that can definitely be a lot greater of a possibility, though. Sure. And hopefully after they watch this video, they will want to come to UH and play. So thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, Katherine. This is awesome. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I agree. Thank you, Chathrin. All right. So thank you, viewers, for joining us today. Thank you to the person who sent in the question. Make sure to tune in next week. Jack Tanvir of ArthurMess will be back to fill us in on what's been happening with India Esports. See you then.