An Esports team member is Campus Current player of the week for his success in the video game Overwatch.

The game is set on future Earth and focuses on team-based shooting challenges.

“I play Overwatch for the school,” said Calvin Williams, a graduating cyber security student who plays the damage position on the team. “My strength as a player is in tough situations, when the team thinks we’re going to lose, I can usually get the kills so my team can come back in and win the game.”

Conway Johnson, who is a technical adviser to the Esports club and also an Overwatch team coach, agreed.

“Calvin is fantastic,” he said. “We’ve got footage of him on screen just putting out insane amounts of damage.”

Williams said hours of practice, particularly shooting drills, are important to playing his role well.

“What I would like to work on is being more consistent with my aim,” Williams said. “So, in the virtual environment you go through drills in the training room … there are training bots you can drill with and … practice getting headshots and stuff like that. There is still a human skill element [to practice].”

“It’s not just aiming and shooting at people,” he said. “You have to know when to use your abilities correctly and protect your team.”

Johnson added that Williams excels at communicating effectively with the other members of the team, a skill he said is critical to success.

“Overwatch is a team-based game, one where you have to coordinate together to achieve an objective as opposed to single-player games,” Johnson said. “In Overwatch every player is in a team-based role. Solos don’t work well.”

Johnson said Williams excels at helping the team achieve objectives: “Calvin is very good at that; he’s on the right targets at the right time for the team.”

Williams said he enjoys being on the campus Overwatch team because of his love for team-based strategy games. One of the things he does to make himself a more effective player is to learn the other positions as well.

“I want to have experience on all the other roles so I know what they are experiencing when I’m playing my position,” he said. “So, I can try to support them when they are having trouble.”

For his ability to play his position effectively and his desire to learn other positions to help his team, Calvin Williams is this week’s Campus Current player of the week.