Professional Athlete Becomes a Professional Gamer

Greg Tito

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Sep 29, 2005
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Professional Athlete Becomes a Professional Gamer

With the NBA season in jeopardy, one player will still be playing at least one sport professionally - StarCraft II.

The fate of the 2012 NBA season is unknown at this point. No collective bargaining agreement between the owners of the teams and the players' union currently exists and NBA players have said that they will play basketball in Europe or elsewhere overseas if the season doesn't begin as scheduled on November 1st. While that means Lakers stars like Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest might end up playing in other countries, one professional basketball player is staying stateside to compete in a different arena. Gordon Hayward - a 21-year-old member of the Utah Jazz - practiced hard for his appearance in the IPL 3: Origins tournament this past weekend in Atlantic City as one of 256 StarCraft II players competing for a share of the $100,000 prize pool.

[vimeo=28423107]

"Pro-gamers are really sports stars themselves," he said while prepping for the tournament. "The mental strategy that goes into planning your next move and what your opponent is going to do are skills you need to be successful playing basketball - and playing StarCraft II. If you want to be good, you have to put a lot of time and effort into it, just like with other sports. I've got the best of both worlds."

Hayward didn't fare that badly in the Starcraft II tournament. According to his Twitter feed [http://twitter.com/#!/gordonhayward], Hayward won his first match two games to none. Unfortunately, he lost his second match, and there were technical problems with his third match. The tournament organizers tried to reschedule but the rematch conflicted with an important interview, so Hayward had to forfeit. The two losses forced his exit from the tournament.

While he may not have had any of the tense back-and-forth battles that viewers of StarCraft II replays on YouTube are familiar with, Hayward doesn't see any difference between the sports. "If you're winning a Starcraft game for the championship at IPL for the six-figure pool prize, that's probably pretty stressful," he said. "At the same time, if you're going to shoot a three-pointer to win the game with someone guarding you, that's pretty tough too. I'd say they are both tough in their own right."

I have to respect Gordon Hayward for heading out to Atlantic City and showing the world that professional gaming is every bit as fun and engaging a sport as basketball.

Someone needs to show writers like Ben Golliver from CBS Sports [http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22748484/31802184] that playing videogames competitively isn't strange or unbecoming of a pro athlete. It's just awesome. Save the mockery for the NBA owners, Ben.

Thanks to [user]cobra_ky[/user] for the tip!

Desert News [http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700176981/Utah-Jazz-Gordon-Hayward-finds-a-new-league.html]

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sir.rutthed

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Nov 10, 2009
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Good for him. But you know, I'd LOVE IT if we could get features on actual esports stars once in a while here. Seriously, there's a lot going on in esports that never gets covered here. It's a huge and growing part of gaming culture and it's sad that we have no coverage of it here at all.
 

Trucken

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Jan 26, 2009
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Greg Tito said:
I have to respect Gordon Hayward for heading out to Atlantic City and showing the world that professional gaming is every bit as fun and engaging a sport as basketball.
Not too difficult to show that, basketball is boring as hell.

I kid, I kid. Well, kinda. Basketball can be somewhat entertaining to watch, but professional gaming has never been my cup of tea. I'd rather watch a Let's Play, they can be really entertaining.
 

Mahorfeus

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Trucken said:
Greg Tito said:
I have to respect Gordon Hayward for heading out to Atlantic City and showing the world that professional gaming is every bit as fun and engaging a sport as basketball.
Not too difficult to show that, basketball is boring as hell.

I kid, I kid. Well, kinda. Basketball can be somewhat entertaining to watch, but professional gaming has never been my cup of tea. I'd rather watch a Let's Play, they can be really entertaining.
Watching LPs is a hobby of mine. supergreatfriend comes to mind when I think of my favorite.

Edit: Crap, double post. >_<
 

Qitz

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Mar 6, 2011
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That's pretty neat, always fun to find out that athletes can enjoy games as well. The viking player who played WoW also comes to mind.

That said. Have fun getting your face rapped by tweaked out Koreans. You may be able to slam dunk over them but they'll out macro your ass.
 

sunburst

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Mar 19, 2010
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Nice to see a mainstream athlete getting involved in esports. Hayward may not be a pro but he'll definitely have a positive effect on the scene.

IPL3 was the second major tournament in a row where a foreigner won over high-level Korean competition. Might be hope for MLG Orlando yet. It was an amazing event as well despite a rough start. Hopefully other events follow their lead with extra content during the inevitable downtime.
 

deth2munkies

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IIRC He only lost to Kawaiirice, who's been with the scene since the beta pretty consistently on the B list of pros. Not bad for a first tourney.
 

Joshimodo

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Wasn't Fatal1ty or Walshy or someone or other a professional athlete prior to gaming?


Anyway, cool, I suppose.
 

Denamic

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Qitz said:
That said. Have fun getting your face rapped by tweaked out Koreans. You may be able to slam dunk over them but they'll out macro your ass.
Koreans are not inherently better gamers.
Competitive gaming is just a much bigger part of their culture than it is in ours.
It's taken more seriously and there's more people to take part in competitions, which breeds a more competitive environment.
It's honestly pretty damn disrespectful to treat Koreans as if they're just naturally skilled.
If they're better gamers than you, it's because they fucking practiced.
 

godofallu

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Jun 8, 2010
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Oh wow he went 1-2 drop. What an amazing feat.

I mean I get it, semi known person plays videogame = videogames are acceptable even for normal people.

The thing is couldn't we have an article about that starcraft tournament and the actual videogame pro who goes 12-0 and wins the thing?

Hell let's have a The Escapist members tourney and have an article on that. Sort of a community get together/event/free article that will get a lot of hits and will actually be about gamers.

PS: I still love you Tito, i'm just saying.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Denamic said:
Qitz said:
That said. Have fun getting your face rapped by tweaked out Koreans. You may be able to slam dunk over them but they'll out macro your ass.
Koreans are not inherently better gamers.
Competitive gaming is just a much bigger part of their culture than it is in ours.
It's taken more seriously and there's more people to take part in competitions, which breeds a more competitive environment.
It's honestly pretty damn disrespectful to treat Koreans as if they're just naturally skilled.
If they're better gamers than you, it's because they fucking practiced.


naturally skilled?

please, biologically enhanced skills, is what they were born with. Unless it involves not spam clicking 300 times per minute, then you might have a chance...
 

sunburst

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Mar 19, 2010
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Denamic said:
Koreans are not inherently better gamers.
Competitive gaming is just a much bigger part of their culture than it is in ours.
It's taken more seriously and there's more people to take part in competitions, which breeds a more competitive environment.
It's honestly pretty damn disrespectful to treat Koreans as if they're just naturally skilled.
If they're better gamers than you, it's because they fucking practiced.
There's a bit more to it than that. Even if the whole world decided to love esports as much as Korea, Korea would still be the best place to train. South Korea is small and has possibly the best internet infrastructure in the world. The net speeds allow players to constantly stay connected. The smaller size means all aspiring pros end up living close to each other. This makes it easy for established teams to snatch up new talents.

The end result is a large number of "Code B" pros who play in exchange for room and board. Code B is the real key to Korean SC dominance. When a top Korean pro wants to test a new build or practice for a tournament, they grab a Code B player who's sole job is practicing old builds. These guys have great mechanics and can perfectly execute any standard play so the senior can work on their weaknesses and be prepared. So Korean pros don't just practice more; they practice better as well. And that environment is nearly impossible to create in any Western nation.
 

ChocoFace

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So there's one more reason to an already comparably big list of reasons of why i think Hayward's awesome.
 

paketep

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Jul 14, 2008
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Technical problems?. Let me guess. B.Net connectivity?.

Until SC2 has proper LAN support, it can't be a pro sport. Try and imprint that into the empty heads at the top of ActiBlizzard.
 

WabbitTwacks

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Dec 8, 2010
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paketep said:
Technical problems?. Let me guess. B.Net connectivity?.

Until SC2 has proper LAN support, it can't be a pro sport. Try and imprint that into the empty heads at the top of ActiBlizzard.
It has been a pro sport for quite a time now. And I haven't really seen any of the pros bitching about the lack of LAN support.
 

WabbitTwacks

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Dec 8, 2010
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Qitz said:
That's pretty neat, always fun to find out that athletes can enjoy games as well. The viking player who played WoW also comes to mind.

That said. Have fun getting your face rapped by tweaked out Koreans. You may be able to slam dunk over them but they'll out macro your ass.
Koreans are imba.
 

sunburst

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Mar 19, 2010
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paketep said:
Technical problems?. Let me guess. B.Net connectivity?.

Until SC2 has proper LAN support, it can't be a pro sport. Try and imprint that into the empty heads at the top of ActiBlizzard.
Someone over at Bnet screwed up so the casino was blacklisted from the servers due to too many connections at the very beginning of day 1. So lack of a LAN option was a problem early on and is annoying to major tournaments. It got worked out pretty quickly.

But the technical issue the article refers to involved a van hitting a pole and cutting the fiber wire servicing the site. The backup net lagged hard. There were also some problems with JustinTV/TwitchTV but that only affected the matches they were casting on stream.
 

Qitz

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Mar 6, 2011
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Denamic said:
Qitz said:
That said. Have fun getting your face rapped by tweaked out Koreans. You may be able to slam dunk over them but they'll out macro your ass.
Koreans are not inherently better gamers.
Competitive gaming is just a much bigger part of their culture than it is in ours.
It's taken more seriously and there's more people to take part in competitions, which breeds a more competitive environment.
It's honestly pretty damn disrespectful to treat Koreans as if they're just naturally skilled.
If they're better gamers than you, it's because they fucking practiced.
Wow. Fishing for insults much? Did I say anywhere that they didn't get that good because they practiced? Nope. Did I say they were just spat out with an inherit ability to play? Nope. Are you trying to get something upsetting by grasping at straws? Yes.

I know they practice 10 / 12 hrs a day, that doesn't change the fact that Koreans are GOD DAMN GOOD AT STARCRAFT!