Brian · @BrianSaintt
19th Feb 2018 from TwitLonger
Retirement from competing:
It deeply saddens me to say I'm done competing for good. It hurts me just to type out these words because ever since the age of 13 or so I've spent the majority of my time competing as it has always been my biggest passion. After taking time off playing to finish getting my degree I knew I wanted to come back one last time and get to the point where I was a salaried and doing what I truly love for a living. However, after being out of school for nearly a year I haven't been able to achieve anything I've dreamed of and need to start heading down a different path in life.
My time playing has had a bunch of ups and downs with a numerous amount of "what-if's". Even after having one of the best years of career placings wise in Ghosts a ton of my confidence was shattered. Being dropped from both seasons of the pro league before they started and missing 3 top 4 placings losing game 5 each time as well as missing out on champs being 1 series away from qualifying was hard to comeback from.
Going into AW I still believed I could get into the pro league and started off the year relatively well placing T16 and T12 the first 2 even with some extremely unfortunate in game glitches eliminating us from the first event. After tearing my rotator cuff in January of AW it was extremely hard for me to play and compete as whole arm would go numb after playing for a few hours causing me to take time off after Ontario to have my first of what would be 2 surgeries.
Fast forward to WW2, after not competing at any events for Bops3 and IW I was extremely excited to stop observing at events and put forth all my effort into competing for the first time in my life rather than balancing it with college and work. The year so far has not gone like I planned as I placed T48 both which far below the standards I set for myself. I'm at a point where I've found it extremely hard to find a team I'm confident in. The AM/semi-pro community feels a lot different than it has in prior years as most players in the T32 range are content on just making a salary and recycling their same clique of friends as teammates constantly thinking it will randomly generate success after producing the same results time and time again.
On that note, I will be looking to work full time in esports and finally put my degree to work. If any friends of mine know of any companies hiring please send me a DM. Also, if any professional CoD teams in the CWL are looking for a full time coach/analyst please contact me as I'd love to keep working in CoD and help bring a team a championship anyway I can.
I'd like to thank the few people who has supported me over the years and everyone who I've teamed with/the orgs who supported us for giving me memories I'll never forget. Giving up on something you dedicated nearly half of your to is one of the worst feelings in the world, but hopefully this door closing can open a better one for myself.
Thank you for taking your time reading this.