Grand Canyon University’s Director of Esports Ops, Jay Deshong Talks State of College Esports
Jay Deshong is currently serving as the Director of Esports Operations in Phoenix Arizona at Grand Canyon University. Over the past 7 years, Deshong has lent his talents to countless big-name esports titles such as Overwatch, DreamHack and FACEIT. He served as a Brand Ambassador for the Dallas Fuel and Coca-Cola Esports and even helped lay the foundation for MSU Esports.
“There’s a very finite amount of those [professional esports] positions and truth be told just like in traditional sports for a lot of these students if they were going to be in that position, they would likely already be in that position,” Deshong talks about why building character in collegiate esports is more important than just excelling at the game. “What we focus on with these students here is turning into people of character, not just players of character.”
As part of our WellPlayed interview series, Jay Deshong talks about how collegiate esports isn’t just about training the next best esports player. A lot of professional gamers tend to get into the streaming and esports scene young, in some cases during or before college. But esports isn’t just about playing the game and Deshong and Grand Canyon University hopes to prepare students for other roles in the esports world such as General Manager, Coordinator, Team Coaches and more.
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