Formerly the coach of Immortals and FNRGFE, Aaron “Aero” Atkins has had some tremendous success in the Overwatch esports scene. He lead Immortals to there win at NGE’s Winter Premiere and helped FNRGFE make their cinderella run during Contenders Season 1. Now, he leads the Philadelphia Fusion’s academy team, Fusion University, which is comprised of some surprising names. Both Seung-Joon "WhoRU" Lee and Kyung-ho "Alarm" Kim of Lunatic-Hai fame have joined Fusion University along with a 14 year old prodigy from the ranked ladder, Haydin "ZerG" Gordon.

Aero took some time out to speak with Esports Heaven about some of his favorite moments during his coaching career, what makes a good coach, and divulged some details on exactly the thought process on forming this roster.

Before we get into the roster, you’ve got to talk to me about what your own personal journey as been like with Overwatch esports. You’ve mentioned on Twitter a few times now, that you’ve gone from coaching in your spare time with Immortals and FNRGFE all the while managing a full time job and now, it’s all come together and you’ve come out the other side the head coach of the Fusion University. I’ve got to ask; how does it feel? I can’t even begin to explain how good it feels. It’s an awful feeling to be late to scrims, to miss scrims altogether, to not be able to lead VOD review, or even to just not be 100% for your players. I have a rule for myself: I won’t ever ask a player to do something that I wouldn’t do and yet every day I had to break it by being late. It’s crushing to feel like you can't live up to your own standards and I wasn't in a position to be without pay. I was turned down for a handful of opportunities because I didn’t have time off and the organization didn’t want to schedule tryouts around my schedule.

The Fusion staff, on the other hand, are incredible and are by far the most professional organization I’ve ever worked with in esports. I couldn’t be happier. Coaching is something that either is super overlooked or is the focus where it shouldn’t be. How do you define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ coaching, or is it something that you’d need a ton of time to discover?

There’s a definite difference between good and bad coaching and it generally takes a non-personal perspective to see it. Poor coaching is usually attached to someone who isn’t willing to adapt to the players’ needs. Everyone learns differently, everyone is motivated by different things and a coach that can’t identify and adapt will fall behind.

During an episode of Overrated, you stated that you believe that teams that interact well with one another tend to do very well. Do you get that vibe from working with the team so far, or does that need to percolate a bit longer?

I definitely get that with this roster. Everyone here is like-minded, motivated, and overall a good teammate. Trust is the most important thing that a team can have when building for the long run and I’m confident that we have it.

Now, let’s start on this roster. Exactly how much of a hand did you have in choosing the players for the team? Was there a specific metric or trait that you were looking for when building the team?  

There were a couple players that were already decided when I came on, but I did have a hand with the rest. Overall, our goal was to find players that have the potential to be the best in the world, but due to their situation or circumstances, they didn’t have the means to grow or make a name for themselves. There’s a lot that goes into finding players with ‘potential’, in reality it’s a mixture of approach to the game, mechanical skill, drive to improve, and how good of a teammate they are.  

That said, with Fusion University, you don’t really have a solid core or a preexisting synergy to work off of. What's the plan on combating that, if it becomes a problem? As a coach, how would you approach a remedy to that problem? Elk, Beast, and Zachareee had some time playing together across the past few months, plus Alarm and Whoru have been playing together for a while. Synergy at its base, boils down to in-game leadership and having collective goals. We have strong leaders and our mentality is focused around growing together and helping each other. There’s no room for selfishness. If it were an issue on a team, the big thing is to find where the peer leadership lies and build on it. The best leaders know how to be good followers. Sometimes all it takes is someone to take a step back to help teammates shine.  

Let’s start with some of the elephants in the room. Someone who has always stood out to me a huge prospect has been WhoRU. Before the age of 16 he had won his first APEX championship and he is (presumably) leading up your DPS. What has it been like working with WhoRU so far? Both WhoRU and Alarm are huge power pickups for an academy team. What traits do they poses that sold you on the both of them outside of their name value? It’s no secret that WhoRU and Alarm are extremely talented, but what’s also really impressive is their drive to learn and their drive to be involved, even when they don’t quite understand what’s being said. They’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into learning the English terms and the western players have been super helpful. These guys are going to huge stars in both Contenders and OWL when it comes. Keep an eye out!

One of the most surprising names is one I don’t think many people have heard much from; 14 year old Hayden ‘ZerG’ Thomas Gordon. Give me the rundown on this prodigy. What can we expect out of him come Contenders and the BEAT Invitational?

ZerG is a prime example of what the Contenders scene can be for a player. He’s super talented, young, and made a name for himself on the competitive ladder. We’re his first team, so it's a unique opportunity to build good habits and work towards both short and long term goals. He’s already one of the best aimers I've ever seen and he's only 14 about to be 15. Imagine what he can do with 3 years of structured experience.

Will you or the team have any interaction from the main Overwatch League coaching staff and roster?  

I work with the main staff a fair amount already, and everyone's in a main discord server together. As time goes on, we’ll have more opportunities for interaction both online and in-person, but it's already like a big family.

Many people worry that the Tier 2 scene is a bit of a bubble. What do you think needs to change to entice more organizations into investing into the Contenders scene and beyond? The changes to the Contenders structure is great for players, but I think the endemic organizations would want more opportunities for prize money and more opportunities to have their brands publicly displayed. The structure will work well, it just needs time. I expect the first Contenders season of 2018 to not have many endemic organizations in it, due to how important it is for OWL season 1 to do well and how unknown the tier 2 scene looks from that perspective. Once everything’s settled down and the Contenders structure is up and rolling, we’ll see more organizations investing into the scene.

To end, with everything that has happened so far, grinding to where you are now, working with numerous team, etc. Talk to me about some of your favorite memories that you

It's already been a wild ride. When I started coaching in Overwatch I came in with the goal to have a positive impact on players’ lives. That's success to me. When I was under 18, I didn't have the opportunity to have a coaching staff dedicated to helping me grow in esports, so I want provide what I can to make sure my players can be their best both in and out of game. Seeing 11 of the guys that I spent a significant amount of time working with make it into OWL is incredible.

The best match experiences would be the winning moment for the NGE Winter Premiere with Immortals, I was a nervous wreck that whole series. On FNRGFE it has to be when we won the match vs Arc6 in the groups stage of Season 0 to knock them out and punch our ticket in. That set had so many implications for both sides and was a tipping point for many careers.

Lastly, during the Contenders Season 1 playoffs the FNRGFE intense escape room schedule got messed up. We ended up sitting around playing board games for an hour and half in a lobby in the middle of LA, it produced some great memories.

I can't wait to see what this year has to offer. Expect great things to come out of the Philadelphia University lineup.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.