{"id":9146,"date":"2021-07-01T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T07:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/?p=9146"},"modified":"2025-07-29T15:47:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T07:47:25","slug":"when-all-play-is-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2021\/07\/01\/when-all-play-is-work\/","title":{"rendered":"When all Play is Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The motto of the University\u2019s Tembusu College, \u201cHome of Possibilities\u201d, has stuck with Mr Jensen Goh (Engineering \u201917) all these years. In fact, it propelled him to a career that he never thought was possible: as the head coach of an American esports team. \u201cRight before I entered NUS, I told myself that it was time to get serious and stop esports,\u201d says the 28-year-old, who had been playing games like\u00a0Starcraft<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0League of Legends<\/em>\u00a0competitively as a teen. \u201cSince I wasn\u2019t making much progress, I decided that maybe an esports career wasn\u2019t for me.\u201d
\u00a0 \u00a0<\/div>
That would have been the end of his esports journey \u2014 had he not stumbled upon a tournament organised by Tembusu College for\u00a0Dota<\/em>, a popular strategy video game. \u201cI knew I was pretty decent at public speaking so I decided to try my hand at being a commentator for the tournament,\u201d he recalls. His decision proved to be the right one, as he found he had a knack for making complicated gaming concepts easy for laypeople to follow. His popularity as a commentator, known in esports circles as a \u201cshoutcaster\u201d, grew after he won a commentating competition later that year. Armed with this win, Mr Goh started raking in serious money, earning up to $1,000 for each commentary session. He then ventured into coaching amateur esports teams and struck gold in 2017, when he was asked to coach a professional Taiwanese\u00a0League of Legends<\/em>\u00a0team, Fireball. For the first four months of that year, he stayed in Taiwan, where he juggled coaching commitments with his final-year project. \u201cMy parents were worried that I wouldn\u2019t be able to graduate,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut my priorities were (in this order): family, school and then esports. So I wasn\u2019t about to mess up school for the sake of esports.\u201d<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Mr Goh has a knack for making complicated gaming concepts easy for laypeople to follow.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Fortunately, Mr Goh completed his project on designs for a smart dustbin and graduated that year. Recognising his passion, his parents supported his decision to enter the arena full-time and he has since coached teams across\u00a0the world. Currently based in Los Angeles, he is believed\u00a0to be the first Singaporean head coach of a professional US\u00a0League of Legends<\/em>\u00a0team.

What has helped him become the coach that he is today? He credits two\u00a0Ideas & Exposition Modules<\/em>\u00a0he took at NUS for expanding his horizons. The first was on sports and society, which encouraged him to study the science behind coaching. Another, on\u00a0Public Persona and Presentation<\/em>, has also shaped his approach to commentating. \u201cIn most instances, people trying to become commentators will be fixated on the technical aspects of speaking \u2014 how to enunciate better, for example. But this module took a more holistic approach and made me consider the elements of my commentating and how that translated to a personality of sorts.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"\"<\/h4>

\u00a0<\/p>

GOING GLOBAL\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>

Over the years,\u00a0 Mr Goh has coached 9\u00a0professional\u00a0League of Legends<\/em>\u00a0teams across\u00a07 countries.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His time at the University has put Mr Jensen Goh (Engineering \u201917) on track to becoming a highly sought-after coach in the world of esports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9146"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9163,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9146\/revisions\/9163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}