Dear Orgs – Coaching/Analysis requirements and roles

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Establishing the difference between Manager/Coach/Analyst
• Open Letter
• Suggestions moving forward

Introduction

My name is Rnglol, I’ve been working as both a coach and analyst for around 3 years now. In both the Challenger Series and LCS. Previous teams include SHC, H2K and Dig.EU. Today I’ll be discussing some of the job opportunities that have been appearing and the requirements set for said roles.

Differences

It’s still a grey area apparently for most. But support staff do in fact have different responsibilities and skill sets. While some can cross over each other in terms of role, that’s up to the head of staff to delegate.

This is the easiest way I could visually represent the roles. A brief overlap can occur since some coaches take more of a man management approach and also delve into analysis. It’s completely up to the team which belong to whom. But essentially; Managers tend to the team and business. Coaches understand the team and look to change in/outside of game behavior, this can include communication, they are usually responsible for setting strategy and now in LCS control the draft phase. Analysts understand the game on a deeper level and provide coaches with information to improve the team. They can also help set strategies for upcoming matches through scouting, theory crafting etc.

To whom it may concern,

Lately I have seen a lot of interest from both teams and members of the community, in the recruitment of both analysts and coaches. Looking at the requirements some teams are setting I cannot help but feel aggrieved. Not for myself, but for those looking to get into this line of work. While i’m happy that teams are now publicly displaying these job opportunities we are far from getting the right message across to people.

You see, some of the requirements and information on these posts are perplexing.

Let’s take a look at said requirements and think about the reasoning.

Age restriction;

Most organisations look to bring in a coach older than the players, as to act as an authority figure one must be more mature. Age does not always mean you are more mature, but I understand this one and agree with having it in place. You see in most sports, the Head Coach will almost always be over 30. Around the age players start to exit the sport.

As for analysts though, this rule should not apply. The role is completely different and age is no barrier for analysis.

ELO;

Now this one is truly baffling. While some coaches or analysts are in fact ex Pro or focus a lot of time in SoloQ, the role of both Coach and Analyst requires you NOT to play the game. In fact if you’re a coach or analyst spending a lot of time in SoloQ, you’re losing out on time that should be spent watching over VoDs, improving your game knowledge or finding out what the next big picks are in other regions. Theory crafting itemization, pathing and build orders. Even ward placements. To have any expectation of either a coach or analyst to be of a certain skill level in soloQ is just crazy. While some people may cite that it’s in fact down to reducing the volume of applicants, why would you ever want to reduce the amount of people interested in a job opportunity. Keep in mind that teams generally scrim between 4-8 hours a day, so this is on top of that amount of work.

Previous Exp;

Alright, now while i agree that someone who has experience in a role will generally be more tailored to the job, at least in the case of coaching. Having the ability to man manage teams is something that is vital with the role. However, analysts can be content creators, writers, shout casters etc. People who have worked and analysed the game more so to build their ability rather than for the gain of another team should not lose out on an opportunity because they were enhancing skills in other areas rather than working with a challenger team in the past. That probably had no idea how to utilize the skills of said analyst anyway.

Maturity

I feel like we covered this with the age restriction.

Quality of Work

This is really important. If you cannot express your opinions and analysis in the correct manner, then it will lose it’s value. I highly agree with this. But in general it should be covered with an example of your work. Something that a content creator or shout caster would be able to provide fairly easily. It’s important that you’re actually providing analysis and not just play-by-play. There is a difference y’know.

Moving Forward

As with any job opportunity;

A description of what you will be doing – what responsibilities or power over the team will be delegated to you.

How many hours you will work? Zero hour contracts are not something I promote and to be honest they should not be a thing.

If it will be paid. This can help people gauge if they want to apply for the role or not. Someone who is looking to start out in analysis or coaching may be interested in taking a role without pay to gain ‘work experience’ – such is the nature of eSports. But with the relevant prize pools in both CS and LCS, all staff should receive something.

Job Security. Will you be contracted? How long for?

In an ideal world, every support staff member would be getting paid and know what the hell they are supposed to be doing. But ultimately that’s not the case. Most teams and organisations don’t have a clue how to use their staff and players know even less about what they should expect from said staff.

So please, in future take this into consideration and to those organisations that don’t provide your teams with support staff let this be a wake up call because it’s a disgrace that teams go without any help. MANAGERS ARE NOT COACHES.