Why I want to be a Professional Overwatch Player

I couldn't really sleep tonight and felt inspired for some reason to write. This twitlonger will have my personal goals for my career and my history as well. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I suppose I'll start this off by giving a little background of myself. I was born in Arizona, where the sun's beams of light are always 120 degrees and no one wants to leave indoors. I originally played competitive games with my friends back in middle school starting with Warcraft 3 and LoL. I was never any good at these games.

My friends were the smart bunch of the school, and me, not so much. They acted like I was some marketing geek, but I'm pretty sure I just rode the coattails of some of the brightest kids in school. Nevertheless these guys were MOBA players, I was an FPS player. None of my friends were into FPS games or they just weren't naturally good at them. For some reason I was the best of my friend group in this particular genre of game. I felt as if I needed to be the best of my friends at this genre, even if it was the most disliked. I grinded the game of CSGO for over 5 years. After the first year of playing I wanted to do even more in the game, but I wasn't sure how. I just kept playing CS tournaments over and over again.

Eventually I quit and moved on to other games. I felt that since I wasn't 18 or even close to an age that most CS pros were, I had no chance of being a pro CSGO player. I tried to find a game that I could master and go pro in.

It was at the end of my final year of high school. I already had enrolled in Arizona State University and tuition cost was over $8,000 a semester. My parents had saved up enough for four years of college over the course of my entire life, however, two of those four years would only cover a local community college. Overwatch open beta started May 5th. It was at this point that I felt like I was destined to play this game. This was that one shot I needed and dreamed of for almost two years. After the beta ended, I set on a similar grind that I was on a few summers back when I played CSGO. 12-14 hours a day of Overwatch. I started to feel as if I was getting good at McCree and other hitscan heroes. I started to play on teams, and before I knew it the school year started. As the months went by I noticed my grades weren't looking too hot. "An assignment or two couldn't have that great of an impact on my grades," I thought.

I failed.

The first semester of college, I couldn't bear that burden of telling my parents that I wasted their money. So I enrolled in community college, they thought I passed my first semester of college. I kept grinding Overwatch, going from team to team and streaming. Eventually they found out about my poor grades in community college. They were furious, the addiction that they rightfully thought I had has gone too far for them. It was at this point, in early May, a year from when I started my Overwatch journey, that my parents kicked me out.

During this time I was trialing with Splyce, some of my current teammates were on this roster. I had no idea what to do. I had less than a month to move out, no where to go. People such as Calvin (Aimbotcalvin) and Carter (Lmaohex) offered me a place to stay. These amazing people believed in me. For some reason these people saw something that I could not. I still to this day do not think I'm at a level that's needed for a player that is involved in the Overwatch League. I moved in with Carter in late May. And here I am now, living in Carter's bedroom grinding Overwatch daily with my current teammates. I don't have a stable income currently, and Carter has been the nicest person in the entire world to not make me pay rent. I've been living off of tournament winnings, streaming donations/subs and spare parts I put up for sale. Even though our toilet may not be working, and maybe our hot water hasn't been on for the past couple weeks, I do not care. The only thing on my mind right now is getting into Overwatch League. This is the dream I share with every other player competing in Overwatch right now. I do NOT intend to let those who believe in me down. I will get into Overwatch League and pay my parents back for what I owe them, and give back to those that have helped me along the way.

Thank you for reading,
Dusttin "Dogman" Bowerman

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