On an overcast Monday afternoon outside of the Tate Student Center, Annie Lian waited patiently at a wooden picnic table with a bed of vibrant orange pansies at her back. She wore a generic gray T-shirt and bluejeans with nondescript black tennis shoes. Hairy Dawg silently promoted a nearby blood drive, which elicited few responses from the hectic lunchtime traffic that came and went.
As Lian began to talk, she instantly gravitated to video games, which have helped her feel like she “belonged” to something.
Indeed she does belong to something, as she is the president and co-founder of Esports at UGA. Although she says she was never skilled enough to play video games professionally, she has put her competitive nature to use by managing others in their esports ventures.
The beginning of it all
That competitiveness sparked her interest in playing video games early in life in her hometown, Johns Creek, Georgia. She started out by playing “those simple, browser-based games,” like Neopets and Club Penguin that she could get away with playing while in school. She met many people — virtually — while playing those games and still keeps in contact with a few of them “for some reason.”
“I never met these people in real life, but it’s that feeling of connection you have with them, it’s hard to describe,” Lian said pensively.
Later in her video game journey at the University of Georgia, Lian connected with people in real life, like York Delloyd, who was in her freshman chemistry class always watching video game streams.
“I decided to sit next to him one day and we just started talking about gaming and stuff, and that’s when it happened,” Lian said, laughing as she reminisced.
That acquaintance sparked into something much larger than just two friends talking about their love for video games — it marked the conception of Esports at UGA. Now in her final year as president, the organization is a finalist for Organization of the Year at the Student Organization Achievement and Recognition (SOAR) Awards and has helped members to earn over $40,000 in scholarship money over the last year and a half. There were very few people at the first meeting, but now they have hundreds come out to their events — all because of the work Lian and Delloyd started in late 2015.
Breaking stereotypes
There’s one problem. Not many women are coming out to these events and even fewer women running collegiate esports organizations.
“When I’m sitting in a room with the other presidents of Georgia esports, usually I’m the only girl there,” Lian said. “I don’t really think about it if I’m being completely honest.”
Lian may downplay her presence, but members of the executive board for Esports at UGA think she is a bigger game-changer than she might indicate. Jacob Sumpter, the vice president of the organization, wished she would “realize” how big of a deal she is.
Sumpter imitates those who get surprised when they hear a female has made a huge difference in the esports world. “Every time we go into a meeting everyone’s shocked, like beyond belief, they’re like ‘What? There’s no way that you did this. You founded this?’” Sumpter said mockingly.
Lian is trying to pursue a career in the esports business no matter what the stereotypes or norms of the profession convey. Even her “traditional Asian” parents as she put it, don’t quite understand her love for video games and wish that she did something else with her life. Lian started out as a pre-med student and appeased her parents’ wishes. After taking a couple of classes, she realized she didn’t feel comfortable and made the switch to a graphic design major and a computer science minor — a healthy balance of what she loved and what would put her in the best position to succeed when looking for a job after she graduates at the end of the semester.
While her parents might not understand and people in the esports world can’t believe it, Lian perseveres and her officers commend her ability to stay collected during high-stress moments. Dawson Marchelletta, the incoming president of the organization, cited a recent Atlanta fighting game tournament where she was running around the event solving problems and checking on every single game that was going on. Through all of the pressure situations, Marchelletta thought Lian’s ability to stay composed and joke around with everyone is what stood out.
Trying to do it all
Lian does just about everything for the organization. Whether it’s planning, photographing or making graphics for an event, Sumpter and the other officers know that she could do it all by herself if she really wanted to. However, that’s not the type of person she is.
She delegates different tasks to her officers and empowers them to take on leadership roles. Sumpter said that Lian tries her best to make sure that if she is unable to make it to an event for some reason, everything should go perfectly fine without her.
“Without Annie, we would not have been able to grow as leaders and in our skillsets as fast as we did,” Sumpter said.
While she does entrust duties to a lot of officers, Lian still attends most of the trips that the various esports teams go on, including the Collegiate Starleague Grand Finals in New Jersey in late April. Although she should probably be preparing for the end of the her college career like many others, it’s a testament to the type of time commitment and effort Lian has put into the organization for more than three years.
Andrew Walsh 