Retired Semi-Pro eSports Athlete
2017-2020
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Alek has a very diverse background and has branched off in many different directions in the past. One of his branch-offs during highschool, was his excessive obsession with becoming an eSports pro. A popular MOBA game called League of Legends was at the front of Alek’s brain. And over the course of a couple years of disciplined practice, VOD review, and competing in multiple tournaments Alek became quite skilled and even reached a very high ranking on North American servers.
On weekends in between schoolwork, Alek competed in many tournaments in his local area. Creating a team with his friends from high school and in some tournaments winning prize money.
Alek regularly attended bi-weekly Roosevelt Field Mall LoL tournaments with highschool friends.
Since his middle school days, Alek had been chasing the idea of becoming a professional eSports player and continued to practice and review game footage in his free time outside of school. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which perspective you take, Alek eventually grew out of this dream and instead turned his attention towards career growth and academia towards the end of highschool.
Alek’s interests in eSports remain to this day, however his days of practicing to become a professional are over.
One thing to note before dismissing video games as mindless and stupid, is the potential prize money at pro-level tournaments and an ever increasing salary of professional players in the eSports world. World class eSports tournaments can have prizes ranging from thousands to millions of dollars and salaries of top players easily reach the millions a year mark. Reaching that high of a level of play is nearly impossible and not only takes years of practice and fine tuning of skills, but also takes genetic luck. This “genetic luck” includes someone’s innate reaction time (which makes a huge difference in fast paced video games) and fluid IQ (meaning how fast they can think and act in intense situations).
When I look back on it, I have no regrets obsessively playing video games in my highschool days. I’m a very competitive person and in my eyes all those years of grinding were simply solidifying my competitive nature as a person. Yes, it’s easy to look back and find all of the bad things that came from my time playing video games, but I don’t do that. For one, it's already in the past. And secondly, there is always a positive outcome from anything. It’s up to the person to find that positive angle and learn from it.