XSET’s Jarvis on moving from playing to coaching: ‘It’s been a long time coming’

XSET are pushing into the second stage of the NAL with a face that will be well-known to Rainbow Six Siege veterans: Sam Jarvis.

Jarvis has been a professional player since the halcyon days of year one Rainbow Six Siege and has spent time on Luminosity, TSM, DarkZero, FlipSid3 Tactics, SK Gaming, and Ominous. And now, after a long, storied career as a player, he’s transitioning into a full-time coaching role for the first time.

Jarvis says that while this is his first foray into coaching officially, he has experience with the role from his time in the Challenger League after his stint with Luminosity. “As a player on like tier-two teams, I’ve played with all the hats on,” Jarvis said. Veterans in the Challenger League are often asked to fill many roles on tight budgets and Jarvis said that while he’s never been a full-time coach, he’s experienced doing everything a coach does. That includes strategy creation as well as elements of mentality and communication coaching.

Jarvis said his decision to join XSET and move into coaching came down to finding a situation with the right players and the right org at the right time. Familiarity with teammates Tim “Creators” Humphreys and Adam “Drip” Kolodokin made it easy for him to move on, spurning “several” other offers to step into this new role with XSET.

The task ahead of Jarvis is a difficult one. The goal of any competitive team should be to win all of their games, but he understands that doesn’t happen overnight. XSET only won one game in the opening stage of the NAL, a 7-5 victory over DarkZero. They had some close overtime games, but without outright victories, they lagged behind every other team in the points standings to finish the stage in ninth place without a single SI Point to their name.

Ultimately, Jarvis thinks something that he can definitely lend his expertise to is communication. With a background in esports extending all the way back to the Halo series, he believes that the basics of communication learned in the past decades will pay dividends for XSET now in the 2020s. Particularly, XSET’s attacking splits have been rough, which boils down to a lack of efficient communication. In a way, coaching has been in Jarvis’ future for quite some time. When he initially left DarkZero, he told Dot Esports that he had the option to stay as a coach.

“Well it’s kind of been a long time coming, to be honest,” Jarvis said. “I’ve had opportunities to coach throughout my career. And I think this opportunity is a good chance to kind of step away from playing, kind of like put down the keyboard and mouse. [I get to] stop worrying about like what sensitivity I’m using, don’t have to stress about the mechanical aspects of the game and just really focus on the teamwork, communication, and strategy.”

XSET will be back in action on June 16 against Disrupt Gaming for their first appearance of the stage.