*By Jimmy Mondal*
Will “wiill” Sims, in-game leader of the NobleGG team that recently qualified for the NPL preseason, started gaming as a League of Legends player in 2012. But his League of Legends skills didn’t foreshadow his later esports success.
“I was never personally that good,” he told Cheddar Sports with a laugh, “so I ended up just trying the coaching route.”
Sims continued to coach and manage League of Legends, he says, until Riot Games started to franchise out and he realized his chances of getting in without the connections or accolades that some of his peers possessed were slim.
At this point, he was looking for a game that was “accessible and something that you could get into early.” He realized that getting to a game late makes it harder to gain access to its inner circle and advance.
That’s when he discovered PUBG, right as it was first announced.
Sims jumped into the competitive scene in February, eventually playing in amateur 2v2 tournaments with some semi-professionals who happened to be missing team members for a full-on four-player squad.
After gaining experience through the amateur circuit and proving himself to the semi-professional community, he started to make connections to members of the NobleGG squad. However, Sims didn’t have the experience of some of the other players.
Although PUBG was his first first-person shooter game, Sims was able to prove his value by using the analytical and leadership skills he picked up while coaching League of Legends ー like “how to apply strategies, how to make a team work together, how to make people mesh.”
When coming to PUBG, he said he asked himself: “What other avenue can I approach to make myself valuable to the team? What can I offer?
“And it came down to the intellectual side of the game ーbeing able to use strategies, being able to adapt and think on the fly and being able to adjust to the situation,” he said adding, “which is what battle royale’s all about.”
Sims qualified with his team for the upcoming National PUBG League. Preseason starts in mid-January.
Less than five weeks after the conference announced it would push football and other fall sports to spring because of the pandemic, the conference changed course.
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The 2020 men's tennis U.S. Open champion, Dominic Thiem, joined Cheddar to discuss his very first Grand Slam title victory. Thiem made history as the first man to come back from two sets down to win at the U.S. Open.
Lou Harris, the founding member of Black Surfing Association Rockaway, offer free surfing lessons to all kids to teach them how to love the water. The national non-profit was founded in California in 1975 to introduce surfing to more African Americans.
Peter O'Reilly, the NFL's executive vice president of club business and league events, talked to Cheddar about the league's new approach to racial inequality issues this year.
The University of Maryland's head football coach, Mike Locksley, joined Cheddar to discuss a new initiative he started, aimed at getting minority coaches elevated to the next level in their careers. The National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches is backed by current and former coaches as well as executives.
Actress and director, Eva Longoria joined Cheddar to discuss her role in establishing the the NWSL's newest team, Angel City as she fights for equal pay in the sport. Longoria also discusses her experience hosting night one of the Democratic National Convention.
Anti-gun violence activist, Manny Oliver, joined Cheddar to discuss an initiative he started following the death of his son, Joaquin, in the Parkland massacre.
Matt Kalish, president of sports betting company DraftKings, talked to Cheddar about NBA legend Michael Jordan joining as an adviser to the company's board.
NBA all-star Jrue Holiday is working to combat systemic racism by donating his remaining salary. The New Orleans Pelicans guard is working with Resilia, a technology platform, to track his donations and ensure change is really happening.
