If you were to walk into The Stable — the university's very own state-of-the-art esports facility — and ask them what keeps the place running, you'd receive an overwhelmingly unified answer: Rob Holub.
Beyond all the colorful LEDs that keep the place lit and the awarded esport banners slowly growing to line the walls is a well beloved man who maintains the program behind the scenes. From handling the mass influx of student onboarding to sending out gentle but firm Discord reminders that 'Not angry rholub' needs people to keep The Stable clean and organized, Rob oversees a little bit of everything as the Director of Esports here at the university.
More than just the man hired to run the esports program, Rob acts as the guiding hand and listening ear to each and every student in The Stable. With his semesterly player wellness meetings and willingness to meet player needs like Stable upgrades or offer advice in the face of off-the-wall scenarios, Rob embodies the best of what a leader can do for his division.
Danielle Capece from the media team sat down with Rob during the 2024 fall semester to ask him about his experience managing the esports division. Per usual he was in high spirits, all smiles through the conversation and cracking jokes; it was easy to tell he was glad to be there, had pride in the work he'd done and the high hopes for what was to come.
(Note: the conversation was slightly edited for clarity as it transcribes a video interview.)
DC: You can go ahead and introduce yourself for us
RH: I'm Rob Holub, I'm the Director of Esports, I've been here at the University of New Haven for eleven years as a staff member and graduated in 2008 from the Sports Management program.
DC: How would you describe the esports community here at the University of New Haven and within The Stable?
RH: I would describe the university esports community as a super inclusive and welcoming place that you can come and first of all game — that's the best part about being here! — but you can also be yourself. You can find your community which I think is important, but you can also come from different backgrounds too. We have 40+ different academic majors, we hail from just about 30 different states, so a lot of different cultures and ideas. You can come in and not only game and play, but use it to enhance your experience here as a student, both on the academic side where we have a lot of people who major within this space — which again is a far reaching academic space — but also on the extracurricular side; it gives you all those different intangibles about time management, and dealing with others, and teammates and comradery.
So again a really great space, and especially being in the heart of campus here is that everybody walks down this main hallway. Being very visible in that space, our community is very up front in a public spot for people to come and say "Hey, this is a great example of what being a Charger really is."
DC: What are some of your goals for the University of New Haven's esports program?
RH: Our goal for the New Haven esports program was first off to grow to a hundred different students within the program, so we've achieved that this year which we are extremely excited about. A secondary goal was being able to win, not only conferences and banners, but also that we hit 100 total wins as a program last year, it was a massive goal. And we get to continue to expand! One of the larger goals we've had for a number of years now that we got up and running this year was our media team and streaming. Allowing our growing publicity of the program but also having it run through our students is really a proud moment for us.
DC: In esports, what has been one of the biggest challenges you have faced and how did you overcome it?
RH: One of the biggest challenges we've had with the esports program is simply managing not only student expectations but student demand for different titles. Titles come in and out of fashion, so to speak, so we've upgraded or downgraded different titles. We've also added JV and academy programs, and we also work very closely with our club program for different things such as fighting sports or your 2K or your EA sports games. So dealing with all of that, of having different people come in and also that game change too — we could use Call of Duty as the best example — is difficult. Every 11 months there's a brand new title that we not only have to teach people, but we have to learn and we have to purchase it.
So really being in tune with what the students need, obviously equipment goes to that, software goes to that, and figuring out how best we can manage all of those 100+ expectations and perspectives. It's making sure that people are as happy and even stress free when they come in here, that you can simply sit down and game and then go on your way when you're done as well.
DC: What has been your favorite moment in esports?
RH: My favorite moment in esports — and I always get super cheesy when I say this — is seeing people grow over the four years; always seeing the seniors when they come in as a first year student. I had the privilege of teaching our Sport Management program for a long time, and I taught the first and last class in the sequence which was really cool because I got students in their very first semester and then their very last semester, so that is always my most favorite thing and what I'm most proud of. We just graduated our first BS in Esports and Gaming students, and also our first varsity players who had gone through all four years — and we have some grad students who are hanging around cause they wanted a fifth year so I'm seeing them even longer. But seeing them come in as that bright and bushy-tailed first-year student having no idea how the world works or esports or anything else, and then being super well refined and understanding how the industry works, having really good skill sets, community team building and management skills, and a resume to go get that job and career has been absolutely rewarding. As cheesy as it is, but the older you get it's really cool to see people develop and see that their time here was very meaningful.
DC: Going from a traditional sports background to a position in managing esports, what were the biggest adjustments you had to make?
RH: Oh man, I talk about this all the time, but the move from traditional to esports has got a pretty significant learning curve as a self proclaimed 'boomer' within the industry.
Having to learn that things are very different, I think that my biggest challenge was 14+ years coaching lacrosse at a collegiate level where you had a roster of forty to fifty people and they could all play at a single game coming down to roster locks and freezes of only having five or six players in a particular title. Also having ranks and having to be very close in averages becomes difficult when you have different conflicts come up — especially here at New Haven where we say everybody does a minimum of four things at all times, sometimes five or six. So juggling all those different roster expectations, that has probably been the most challenging.
Understanding the space, I think I have a leg up as a gamer myself of knowing how the culture works and how people function within this space. But again going from traditional where it's very top down heavy, where it's drilled in from when you're five or six that 'the coach is in charge' to esports is a big switch. Here we try to create a very transparent, open, and utility style leadership where you can come with ideas — and that every idea might not be good but we're going to listen to it — so maybe your tenth or fifteenth or twentieth suggestion is the one that changes everything for us; it's little simple things like that. We allow people different resources and tools. We've seen it with our leaders and our captains this year of simply empowering them to say, "Hey this is what I like to see" or "This is how I want my community to be." We let them go through that process and then bring it to us versus that parent relationship of "the parent has always got to be right." If you treat everybody equally, you get a lot better results a lot quicker. So it's been that change and I think in a good way, and I think you're seeing traditional sports mimic that anyway.
Then just again understanding what on earth a 60% keyboard is, and explaining what Twitch is to people that are much older than me, that you can stream stuff, has been both rewarding and challenging at the same time. It's part of the heart of what we do, we're an academic institution so it's about always continuing to learn and being a lifelong student. Again as cheesy as that sounds, understanding that you have to be adaptive and figure out that tomorrow is gonna be a different day and more things are going to come out; esports has taught us that. Having this wonderful community here to help embrace all of that has been really rewarding.
If there is any one thing to take away from Rob's words, it's that what's being done with the Esports program is something special. It's growing to be more than just a team but a home for the students to create a community culture unlike any other. Lucky for the players, they have a program director just as eager to empower them as they are to play.
While tryouts for the UNH Esports teams have come to a close for the current year, the media team still accepts new students who would like to be part of the program. If you are interested in any of our several titles, come support our teams by catching a livestream on the University of New Haven's Twitch channel. VODS of the games, for those who aren't able to catch them live, can be found on the YouTube channel. Weekly game schedules will be posted on Instagram and also posted on the window of The Stable. Go Chargers!
