How UT Dallas Overwatch Managed to Become One of the Best
“We’ve also really normalized mistakes and have normalized the process of growth and learning. When we’re in there for two hours, my players realize they don’t need a perfect block. What I want from my players is for them to understand and explore their limits. So when we get into a match against more challenging opponents, they know exactly how far they can go without crossing that line.”
Level Up is a series of interviews with esports professionals, coaches, and individuals playing their part in innovating the competitive gaming scene. Follow their story and advice as we shed light on their journey.
Collegiate Esports started to become official on July 28th, 2016, as the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) was born. According to NACE, only seven colleges and universities had varsity esports programs at its start. Now, there are over 170 schools with collegiate varsity programs. One of the first universities to make their mark in the western half of the United States was the University of Texas at Dallas. They are currently fielding top varsity teams in League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, and Smash Ultimate.
Their Overwatch A-Team currently consists of:
Daniel “Tinspire” Muckelbauer
Their new Overwatch roster has found immediate success in the 2020–2021 academic year. They have recently placed second in the UCEA Invitational along with an impressive performance in the NACE Collegiate 2020 Championship. At the head of this success is head coach Ivan “King” Payne. Before working with UT Dallas full time as their head coach this year, King was the head coach of Lunaris, a former NA Contenders Trials team, and he had a stint as the head coach of Angry Titans, an EU Contenders team.
The team at Insights had a chance to talk to Ivan about the struggles of last season, the changes he implemented for this season, and what advice he has for collegiate programs looking to make their roster more competitive.
Q: How did you get into coaching Overwatch?
Initially, it was just a pastime. I had school and a job outside of that. Whenever I needed something else to put my time and passion into, Overwatch came along, and I just kind of fell in love with it as a player. It kind of continued from there. After I graduated high school, I went to UT Dallas and saw that they just started up an esports program. I knew they had a competitive Overwatch team in their first year with a bunch of high-level players.
That year, I wanted to try and come on as either a coach or an analyst. And that’s kind of what started the path into coaching Overwatch. In that first year, we made the top 16 in Tespa. We would’ve gone to the top eight, but we had Maryville in our bracket. Falling short against the top teams made me realize that I want to know more about the game. I want to be able to do more to help the team. From there, I started venturing into coaching Open Division teams, and that started my journey inside of Overwatch.
Q: What did you gain from working in Open Division and Contenders?
A lot of it was becoming more intimate with how the game operates. Working in Open Division helped me learn more about the game. I realized that if I just knew more than the guy next to me, I’m more than the previous coach. I only had to bring new ideas to the table. I didn’t have to point out specific problems. I can make suggestions, and that would help me elevate teams and bring them up.
Once I started to get towards trials and working with some contenders teams, whether I ended up getting an offer from these teams or not allowed me to see high-level play. That helped a lot more with my feedback by giving me a lot of confidence. I know what I’m saying is correct. And I will not hesitate to say what a player needs to fix. This allows me to be much further ahead than other people who are a little scared to kind of put their thoughts out there.
Q: Do you think UT Dallas could’ve won the championship last year, and were you upset with their overall performance?
The reality is no; they couldn’t have won. Even with the right changes, they couldn’t have won because of the current environment and structure that UT Dallas takes compared to a lot of other varsity programs. Our structure is very holistic, and it matches very well with my coaching style and what I envision with UT Dallas. I support the vision that we’re an academic school first and foremost.
Even though I knew they couldn’t win the title the way they were at the time, I was upset. I know they definitely could have performed better. I know they still could have maintained a competitive lead and proved that they were a top team to take seriously. The fact that most people didn’t even think we’d be in contention for the top 8 was upsetting.
Q: Going into this collegiate season, what were your biggest priorities as a coach?
The main thing for me was continuing to develop a structure. It’s something that I think is vastly underestimated. In collegiate, schools typically don’t have a lot of time on their hands. Especially those that put a priority on academics. We don’t have much scrim time as it is. Also, because of the COVID pandemic, many of our players have to work on top of school.
At most, we’re lucky if we can even get four blocks a week. Coming from a traditional Open Division background where you’re scrimming four hours a day, you have a massive time cut. So the idea becomes how can we make the most out of the very little hours we have. It’s about efficiency in and out of the game. If you come in with the right mentality of practice, you’re putting in the right things; you’re going to do better just across the board.
It applies in-game and out of the game. I don’t think any of those philosophies or concepts were introduced before I took the reigns.
Q: What resources have you used to help increase the efficiency of your team?
As a coach, what I’ve been doing is reading a lot more books on management. It’s another thing that I think is underrated. People always say they’re going to read coaching books. Coaching is nothing but another form of management. There are different styles of coaching. But in the end, it is a form of managing someone.
And that’s something I think I’ve forgotten. So those resources are things I apply to myself. When we bring any other coaches into the program, I first get them familiar with the program. And then for me, and what I’ve worked with our director on, how can we become familiar with management. How do we make sure that we’re getting the resources and everything we need to succeed? I think that’s kind of had the most significant impact overall in accomplishing the goals I’ve set for the team.
Q: Have your players been receptive to these changes?
I know that the players have been very receptive because what we’ve done has involved bringing in new players with a lot of competitive experience. Freed0m, for example, is a very high-level player with a ton of competitive experience. We use him as a leader to help normalize good behaviors and help us push forward. These guys have a great example that they can compare to in-game while I handle the out of game stuff as a coach.
We’ve also really normalized mistakes and have normalized the process of growth and learning. When we’re in there for two hours, my players realize they don’t need a perfect block. What I want from my players is for them to understand and explore their limits. So when we get into a match against more challenging opponents, they know exactly how far they can go without crossing that line. Over time, these players start feeling a lot more comfortable with what they do, and they can start performing a lot better. All because they’re pushing their limits in every moment we have rather than being scared of failure.
Q: In your eyes, what qualities make up a strong collegiate coach?
The number one quality to me that makes a strong collegiate coach is encouragement. This doesn’t apply to the big top three schools, Harrisburg, Maryville, and Northwood, because all of these players have already gained this experience. But for anyone up and coming, it’s encouragement. Encourage your players to make mistakes, explore their boundaries, and to be more comfortable. The worst thing that’s going to happen to your player is that your player will die in a scrim where there’s nothing on the line, and they’re going to find out what works and what doesn’t.
They’re going to continue to develop their own game and grow as a person. That’s what a strong collegiate coach needs to do. It’s like sitting in a classroom. You’re given a practice problem, and you’re told to do the problem. Of course, you’re going to do the problem because nothing’s on the line. Right? Why don’t you apply that kind of the same line of thinking to Overwatch?
Q: What is the best advice you could give to schools looking to make their varsity teams more competitive?
If you want to develop a roster, you need to have something to offer. Honestly, it’s that simple. If you’re going to bring in highly talented players, you need to be able to offer them money. Give them a reason to go to your program. If you can provide money, provide education, and or provide experience, that all works.
Through UT Dallas, we offer an excellent education. We provide a lot of OWL connections and esports connections. A lot of our alumni currently work within esports. We’ve had people either gone to develop their own organization or work with current top organizations such as the Dallas Fuel. You need to offer something to any player you’re looking for. Most teams instead don’t offer anything at all or they don’t provide enough.
To learn more about Ivan “King” Payne and the great players on the UT Dallas Overwatch team, be sure to follow the UT Dallas Comets on Twitter.
To keep up with our coverage of esports professionals like Ivan, and to see how Insights is equipping these individuals, follow us on Twitter or visit our website, Insights.gg.
