Logan Rivera (he/him), 20, is a sophomore at Blinn College in Bryan, TX. Rivera is enrolled in the Cloud Computing program at Blinn and plans to attend Texas A&M Commerce next fall to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Technology Management. Rivera hopes to work for Google or Amazon Web Services in the future. 

Outside of his scholarly responsibilities, Rivera is the team captain of the Blinn esports team and mainly plays Call of Duty (CoD).

“I try to keep my team motivated and on the same page. My main goal is to help everyone stay confident in themselves because, at the end of the day, we get to play video games as a hobby, so it should stay fun,” said Rivera. 

Rivera got involved in esports the day before his Fall 2023 semester began. He received an email from Blinn’s esports program saying that their teams were on their last day of tryouts and offering scholarships to the best walk-on students. 

“I’ve played CoD for as long as I can remember and knew that I was capable of competing and decided to try out alongside my roommate. I fortunately made the team and ever since then have enjoyed esports and the opportunity to compete,” said Rivera, “I have slowly become better with my decision-making in game. CoD is a very fast-paced game so it’s difficult to slow the game down and think before you act. With that being said, I have tremendously improved my decision-making even with the chaotic pace of the game.”

Rivera described being on a collegiate team as an amazing experience so far. He explained that he has enjoyed everyone he has been on a team with, who really makes gaming fun. He also loves the adrenaline that comes with competing. 

How have you prepared for NJCAAE championships?

“Last fall, our CoD team was allowed to play in the playoffs where in the end, we won the National Championship. It was an incredible experience all the way through and was even better that we had won after putting in so much effort all semester long,” said Rivera. “I think it’s great that junior colleges are given the opportunity to compete against each other in a league that’s set up just as well as other leagues for larger universities.”

In the future, Rivera plans to not only work for a large tech company as a cloud engineer but also remain playing CoD.

“Life comes at you fast, so you have to be able to stop for a second and really think hard about the decisions you want to make,” said Rivera.