the esports tribune

yes, the blog died for awhile, yes i am sorry, no i won’t do it again, yes i have a super awesome interview for you.

if you’re a newer reader, welcome to behind the tag! the series where i interview esports professionals to learn who they are as a person behind just their gamertag (i know, i’m super clever)

if i can tell you one thing about this interview before we start, its that we were laughing the whole entire time. after some jokes and a snide comment about my mic quality (i have a shure now for your information tshaka) we hopped right in. this is a long one, but a good one. buckle up.

without further ado, arsenal.

he’s 22 years old and plays rocket league professionally for dignitas, alongside his teammates evoh and gyro.

he also content creates (smart.) and streams on twitch, while also running two youtube channels! arsenal has been playing rocket league since 2018, and was on his ‘no life grind’ to go pro. (he then tells me he respects me for not doing it and my ego was boosted. little does he know i’ve been plat for three years and never stood a chance)

arsenal is the first person i’ve interviewed whos gamertag actually DIDN’T come from a random name generator. his younger brother had an xbox account called ‘arsenalx97’, and arsenal eventually took that account over because his xbox account stopped working. thus – the legend was born!

you can find pretty much all of that on liquipedia. now, for the nitty gritty.

as everyone so far when i ask this question, he sighed and pondered on this for a moment.

“Who is Tshaka?”

Tshaka is a guy who tries his best to please people. he wants to be able to give everyone the knowledge that he has gained over the years in how to make money, and just lead a good life.

recently, he found out something that changed a lot of his life. tshaka found out that he has adhd. growing up he struggled with a lot of things. the self doubt crept in.

“am i good enough?” “why am i not confident?” “am i really just lazy?”

this newfound revelation is something tshaka takes very seriously. he’s thrown himself into research, reading books and websites and trying to educate himself on how to best handle this. he told me it hits close to home, because a lot of his friends struggle with the same problem. it goes deeper than just a simple diagnosis.

as most of you probably already know, tshaka is a huge basketball fan. before rocket league, it was his main thing.

“i was going d1 at 4’2”

(we laughed about this one for too long)

the dream may have been there, but the outcome was not. i daresay his current outcome is much better.

something that you MAY not have known, is he actually used to be a huge flip guy! gymnastics and parkour gave him a rush. you could fall… but also.. you possibly could not.

we fondly reminisced over school memories here. his friends in school had a group called the flip boy squad – private instagram and everything. they recorded all their flips, and the whole school was into it. from playgrounds, to cars, to buildings – if they could climb it, they would flip it.

it was a great time that came to a somewhat brutal end.

in 6th grade the fated day happened. the superman front flip. i listened eagerly as tshaka recounted the insanity that this flip entailed. a regular front flip, into a superman pose you hold for a second and then flip.

dear reader i could not quite work out the mechanics of this in my brain but i do hope that you can.

the first time he went for it.

and he stuck the landing.

of course if you do something impressive once, you gotta go for it again.

tshaka goes up for the second time, he’s into the flip and as he’s going to land his knee hyperextends.

“i hit the ground and my life is flashing before my eyes i swear i died. i’m on the ground on my side and all these fools are laughing and i think i’m dead”

i ask if he went to the hospital because that sounds rather traumatic and i got laughed at. understandable.

he tried to let his knee work on its own with a $2 knee brace and to this day it still hasn’t healed quite right.

but, this was a bit of a blessing in disguise. flip boy squad gave way into rocket league.

rocket league was his job since day one

“out the womb playin this game”

*insert giggles here*

and god does he love rocket league. maybe not always the game but the people. his community.

when tshaka speaks on this, you could tell it was genuine. the most rewarding part of all of this has been growing a platform. he has the ability to speak on things that are important for him, and able to give a voice to the people who may not have one. if someone can’t speak up and say something, tshaka is always willing to do it. for him – its like being everyone’s older brother. their protector, and their helper.

it wasn’t always like that though. we touched on it briefly earlier, but tshaka growing up had a bit of a dip in life. he never really had a dream job (besides our aforementioned d1 basketball). the unknown adhd manifested itself as low self esteem, blaming everything on himself.

he didn’t know what he wanted to do and didn’t care. whatever happens, happens – if thats how life is, thats how it was meant to be.

the knee injury was kind of a negative turning point in his life. he had to move shortly after, and lost his friends. he’s now in a random place, with people he doesn’t really know, or particularly like. he can’t play basketball, and the general air was just – bad.

“theres a low, and then below. it was under the lowest low. just really bad”

so then i had to wonder, how did he know esports was the thing for him?

tshaka said it didn’t really hit him for awhile. the defining “i’m becoming a pro” moment was when he qualified through rlrs (throwback!)

“i’m not in the little leagues no more”

it was the contract. they smacked him with it, and from there he locked it in.

and lock it in he did. tshaka was with ssg for almost 5 years before his move to dignitas.

he’s had quite a journey in esports. from humble beginnings with the peeps, to making it big time. i know there were plenty of amazing moments (and he told me so himself!), but one that stood out was season 8 worlds.

they had just made it to rlcs.

all of his pro friends, syp, rolldizz, and more were all in a discord together.

that season, every single person in that discord made it to the lan.

when garrett won worlds in season 8, that made tshaka so beyond excited. he ended up getting top 3-4, which was an extremely memorable, and amazing accomplishment.

when you’re on top of the world however – you usually have a support system to help you up.

tshaka immediately gave credit to one of his mentors right now – rizzo. they talk often, and he ‘puts him on game.’ rizzo knows a lot and has really helped tshaka grow as a person, and a player.

while he was on the come up however, a few different people impacted him. garrett was a major part of this, alongside justin and squishy.

tshaka fondly recalls watching all of squishy’s youtube videos, and learning how to play ones from them.

he doesn’t want his career to stop after his time as a pro is up.

whether that career continue on in rocket league, tshaka wants to branch out with his content. doing things like interviewing people, and just interacting! swapping knowledge and jokes, and helping out where he can.

i ask here if he’s a big people person, because it surely sounds like it.

he responds that in certain situations – yeah! when he’s in a big group it can get a little exhausting, wanting to go home and leave quickly. BUT, there’s a perfect middle ground where he can be out and having a blast. he didn’t want to stick to an extroverted/introverted label, so i proudly dub him an ambivert.

it really sounds like he’s living the life.

and honestly?

he is.

everyone has their off days in rocket league. the bad days are bad and the good days are good – and to tshaka it’s as simple as that.

as for life though, its been going really really well. he’s been learning more about himself and meditating. going on runs, and working out (he’s in his bulking szn!).

that made me really happy to hear. especially because of his move to texas, i had to wonder how that affected him.

tshaka also laughed here, and recounted some of his philly days.

“honestly? philly is just ASS!!!! if you want to become something and be a certain type of person that city will bring you down. i just wanted to get out.”

the move has brought some unexpected surprises though. he gets recognized in public much more often than expected. some weeks its a few times, other times, its multiple interactions a day!

“i can see when y’all wanna talk to me. the nervousness and eye contact. just be normal and say hey!”

go say hi. i vouch that he’s cool.

the texas move wasn’t the only change. i’m sure all of you know tshaka recently moved on over to dignitas. its a major change.

but, like most everything, he really enjoys it. he’s with people that have been super close before they ended up on a team together.

“evoh’s an npc but i love him”

sorry evoh.

we laugh about evoh, and tshaka pays him a compliment in that alongside being a skilled npc, he’s also pretty okay at the game.

tshaka and gyro teamed as kids ‘in diapers’. they have a great team dynamic, and violentpanda leads the charge valiantly as a fantastic coach and leader, with an unmatched mental. it’s a great team environment, thats super fun to be a part of.

i like to bring interviews to a close by looking to the future.

what’s next for rocket league? what do you want to see?

tshaka frankly feels they could be doing better. the game hasn’t moved much and its pretty stale. the same thing over and over with no pizazz

“i’m trying to get freaky and its not freaky enough for me!”

i made the mistake of drinking water while he was saying this and i vividly remember choking

he hopes for more for the game that’s given him a career. i think i speak for a lot of people in that i echo the same sentiment.

if you’re new here, we wrap up interviews with my favorite thing

HOT SEAT HOT SEAT HOT SEAT HOT SEAT HOT SEAT

rapid fire, silly questions.

1.) if you were a vegetable what would you be?

probably a broccoli because its consistent but a lil bland. maybe some cheese broccoli if i’m feeling crazy

2.) on a scale of 1-10 how funny do you think you are?

6

i vehemently disagree. everyone keeps rating themselves low on this but we stay cracking up the entire interview. maybe i’m just hilarious.

3.) do you like to read?

yeah. right now i’m reading a lot. the power of now, the subtle art of not giving a fuck, 48 laws of power, atomic habits, and i also bought some random fiction book.

4.) favorite movies?

ministers society, and brother bear

ONE OF THE MOST UNDERRATED DISNEY MOVIES OF ALL TIME

5.) whats the biggest animal you think you could take in a fight with your bare hands?

probably a dog. fuck that wait.. some dogs be bigger than pandas. a panda or a koala. a lazy mf, they cant fight back its so free

6.) whats your favorite food?

chicken

i sat in silence for a moment and considered whether or not i would be cancelled for writing that. tshaka immediately realized and we laughed our asses off for a solid 4 minutes.

look i love friend chicken and mac and cheese yes thats stereotypical but i basically like everything

7.) goofy irrational fear?

rollercoasters. i go on the all the time but my stomach just fucks me up and i don’t fuck with that. the twisting and turning is freaky shit.

its crazy though because skydiving is the most fun thing i’ve ever done but its not as scary as a rollercoaster. yeah when you’re in the airplane lookin down its scary. if something happens you’re dead… but you hop out and do the falling motion. then its calm and you pulled the shit so you’re just hanging and taking everything in. with rollercoasters i gotta close my eyes because i’m finna pass out.

8.) one billion lions or 1 of every pokemon

i dont even know all the damn pokemon and its pokemon. they got pikachu and bulbasaur thats all they need. lions are gonna get shocked like the fuck they got pokemon that big???

i love asking this question. its always such an in depth thought process before we can arrive at a conclusion

9.) what shows have you been watching recently?

vinland saga and snowfall

in my notes here i wrote “power drug show?” so if anyone has any clue what that means feel free to enlighten me

10.) if we did a rocket league creator clash who would you want to fight

we debated this hotly before he decided on either austin or syp.

we then proceeded to laugh about this and halfheartedly plan the event.

rocket league creator clash hosted by hana and tshaka coming to an event near you!

11.) can you play any instruments?

i can play the triangle. AND THE FUCKING RECORDER MAN!! i was going so crazy on that.

we ended this segment with a shoutout

shoutout hana for being the best interviewer in the world and shoutout the whole rocket league community!

thanks twin. (he didn’t believe me when i said we had the same birthday and required my drivers license as proof. i did in fact send it to him.)

i’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not i paid him to say that

this call was simultaneously everything like i expected, and nothing at all like what i expected. we laughed, we got emotional, we got real.

thats the magic of stuff like this. you form a connection with a person about life, and its a very real thing. tshaka’s the type of person you want to have that bond with. he’s a lot more than simply Arsenal.

let this series remind you theres a story behind every person – and oftentimes it’s nothing like you expected. go outside & make a connection today ❤

if you enjoyed this piece and are looking forward to the next one, be sure to go follow on twitter @esports_tribune, and sign up to our email list. send me suggestions for who you want to delve into next!

if you don’t already follow tshaka

1.) you’re trippin

2.) you can find him on twitter @ArsenalRL

until the next one 🙂