The Steady Heartbeat of an Expanding Team
Paul “Gezellig” Tran’s Perfect Balance Between Passion and Academic Journey
Victoria Sun | San Diego, March 16th, 2018 5:00PM
When people think back to the most memorable moments of their lives, many people will often mention college with a warm and happy grin on their faces. College is the time and place to discover yourself and to find out who you are. It is also a place to take risks, to fail, and to succeed and to do what you want before moving onto the next chapter of their lives.
Many people often think back to the crazy parties or actives while others look back to the time where they studied all night for midterms and projects. For Paul “Gezellig” Tran, the most unforgettable story would be helping and seeing others succeed. As an analyst for UCSD’s team for League of Legends, a popular multi-player esports game, Paul does everything from making gameplay montages from the match to being an assistant coach that helps players overcome mental obstacles.
On a Saturday morning, while other students are sleeping in, Paul is usually hustling and editing videos for the League of Legends players. His job is to go through hours of gameplay footage, analyze each and every single play for 5 different players and provide the most critical footage analytics in hopes to improve the players’ skill and playstyle. He usually spends about 5 hours a week going through videos and creating montages for the players to audit. Aside from that, he also hosts weekly meetings with the player to review and advise the players on what they should do to improve. On top of that, he must earn respect and trust from each player as UCSD has some of the best players in the world.
Tran originally was hired as the analyst through the coach, Daniel “Daryzn” Cardino. Cardino says that he “picked him for his video production skills as I thought it would be helpful to have someone communicate ideas better for the team”. On top of that since Paul is also one of the top 1% of the competitive league players, which combined with his crafted production skills makes him one of the best candidate in UCSD to be an analyst.
Though the team is constantly changing staffs and players, Paul tries his best to ignore the shifts and remain his focus on the team. Depending on the games and the season, Tran has to spend more time to create contents for the team so the players can have a better understanding of what went well and what went wrong. The job is not only demanding in time and skill, but it also requires a lot of mental toughness to inspire the players.
“It’s not always easy”, Tran said, “since I know the players are better than me and that I have to earn their trusts, I try my best to be honest and provide a no BS environment”. Furthermore, according to Evexus”, UCSD’s League team player, “sometimes players have different analysis on how to improve, what to change”. In other words, Paul must accommodate those suggestions as well as integrate his own analysis to provide the best advice for the team. Despite spending hours and hours with the players, Paul must set boundaries for the players to ensure professionalism for the team to succeed. Each player has a different relationship with the analyst and Tran tries his best to make sure that the team is comfortable with him. “Ultimately, my job is to help them succeed and raise the team’s spirit when needed”. This means that Paul must set aside his bias and provide all of his skills, time, and energy to the players so that they can do their best without any compensation.
One of the most challenging things Paul faces is to help the players move on from crushing defeats and inspire them to learn from their mistakes.This might sound like a serious and sensitive task, but Tran can almost seamlessly present the materials to the players by adding humor to the gameplay footage. “It’s difficult to just show the player what they messed up on, especially if the team had a bad game. It’s better to joke about it and it helps to mediate the team environment”. In order for the team to move on, the analyst must inspire the team to move on and struggle through the crushing defeat first. At the end of the day, Tran is only human and being optimistic and working at a steady pace is essential for the team as he must be the one to inspire the team.
When asked if he would like to do this full time or even as a career, Paul simply responded by saying that it would be nice, but that’s not his priority. He is focused on improving the team and seeing the team succeed either become professionals or compete for scholarships. For him, being an analyst is a passion that he’s willing to set aside his personal success if needed. Aside from staying on top of his school work, Tran is fully committed to UCSD’s League of Legends team while working at his own pace.
Tran serves as the heartbeat and the brain for the team, but this wisdom is shown in his daily life too. He does what he can, but keeps the balance between handling rigorous schoolwork and intensive extracurricular activities. He mentions that it’s important to pace yourself at whatever you are doing and that it’s important to allocate a schedule to stay on top of things without being too overwhelmed.
It’s important to be passionate about something, but one must realize that at the end of the day, we are all human and we can only do so much. So many people are lost as they chase after money and things that are supposed to benefit them. There are sacrifices that have to be made, but what is important is that we must not be carried away by our passions or else our passion will become us and take full control of us. To everyone out there, GLHF and make sure to capture the objectives without being “tilted” from life.
