The Esports Kid
The esports kid
Braden Cheverie-Leonard, the face of Syracuse’s esports program as a Call of Duty player, an athlete and a star.
Braeden Cheverie-Leonard had a tough November.
The captain of Syracuse University’s Call of Duty varsity team had always been so passionate about his work. He would complete his schoolwork, train with his coach and teammates to practice and compete, then take on additional responsibilities to help build the esports program, such as talking to the Board of Trustees and meeting with the chancellor.
The stress started to build up, but Cheverie-Leonard felt happy and fulfilled by everything he was accomplishing.
By the end of the month, Cheverie-Leonard had a rare thought.
“Am I losing my motivation?” The 20-year-old wondered.
On Oct. 25, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the latest version of the game, was released. The version Cheverie-Leonard had mastered and become one of the best at would no longer be relevant in competitions, and he struggled to adapt to the new game.
“It’s a whole new kind of movement. It’s omni-movement,” he said, “So in the past, you’ve been able to slide, sometimes you can slide, cancel and make a quicker slide. This is the first time you can slide sideways, backwards, like you can do whatever you want. It makes the game a lot more fun, but it also makes it a lot harder for competition because those are the top 1% of players just going crazy with the movement mechanics.”
His team was off to a bumpy start, placing fifth in an online tournament and went 1-1 in another. But Cheverie-Leonard was still positive about how his team progressed in the new game and bounced back after losing.
In the end, Syracuse went 3-1 in the seeding matches, and they would head to Mississippi to continue that tournament and compete for first place and a $1,500 prize.
Then Cheverie-Leonard took another hit.
Catching a cold from his teammate was still manageable. Cheverie-Leonard knew that being a student-athlete was more than being just a gamer, so he never thought of skipping the event.
But his teammate eventually was not able to make it to Mississippi, so the team needed a substitute, or Syracuse would have had to forfeit.
Finding a last-minute substitute was not easy, especially when it was a trip to Mississippi that would take the whole weekend. Cheverie-Leonard was also reluctant to bring in their coach, Zach Denyer, as the substitute because he played professionally before landing in Syracuse.
Cheverie-Leonard wanted to win, but not like that.
In the end, he reached out to an alumnus who played with him in his freshman year to step in as their fourth player. His reply was, “Let’s do it!”
So the emergency was resolved, and the squad was ready for the Friday morning flight to Mississippi.
When the tournament wrapped up, Syracuse finished in fourth place.
Stephen Graham, Cheverie-Leonard’s teammate, was not upset about the result. “To be honest, it was definitely stressful going through all of it,” he said. “But I’m just kind of happy with what the team did given what we were going through and all the hiccups, Braeden for fighting through that sickness.”
Despite all the challenges, the team saw bright side. Graham won the MVP of the tournament despite failing to make it to the top three as they expected.
But it was not that easy for Cheverie-Leonard to let go.
“He was concerned that they didn’t do as well in Mississippi, and he felt that it was because of him,” said Janelle Cheverie, Cheverie-Leonard’s mother. “He was like, ‘it was because of me that we did not place the way we should have. And I’ve put my heart, blood, sweat and tears, and then I let them down.’”
Outside of gaming, Cheverie-Leonard is a completely different person. He has always been upbeat in life. He’s upbeat and enjoys watching the NFL with Graham, joking about the Cowboys. He calls their team a “Big brother, little brother’s system.”
But when it comes to gaming, he’s focused always.
“I’m a lot different of a competitor than a person,” said Cheverie-Leonard. “When I’m a competitor, I’m a little more feisty and emotion-driven.”
Even in a random pickup game, Cheverie-Leonard would practice communicating without his mic on. “One’s flanking! I’m holding,” he never stops, just like in a real game. “I’m going in.” He makes callouts to his imaginary teammates all the time.
So in no world would he allow himself to fail his team.
Graham loves sitting in the back and letting Cheverie-Leonard run the show. But as an experienced player himself, Graham would also make sure he speaks up whenever he thinks Cheverie-Leonard misses anything.
“When he doesn’t know how good he is compared to the opponents, he tends to panic,” said Graham. “He was thinking if he’ll get yelled at or he was thinking he was going to get destroyed. So every time he got those deaths, it all just accumulated, snowballed and he kept letting it get in his head.”
Graham tried to give him pep talks. Whenever Cheverie-Leonard was upset and started to doubt himself during a game, Graham was there to cheer him up. Whenever Cheverie-Leonard got a kill, Graham would shout to him, “You’re good! You’re nasty!”
“I give him an uplifting comment,” Graham said. “And just let him know he’s good, like I’m not mad. Nobody’s mad at him.”
Cheverie tries her best to support Cheverie-Leonard emotionally as well. “Look at Tom Brady,” Cheverie always tells him. “You have good days and you have bad days. That wasn’t one of your best days.”
Cheverie watches her son being so hard on himself, working with passion, and trying to squeeze in two more hours of practice in his schedule. But she also makes sure she’s there when he needs her.
“I try to support him and to listen to him. I try to lead him the best I can,” said Cheverie. “But he is his own person. So I try to give him that space as well, to try to figure it out, try to stumble and learn from those stumbles, and give him advice when he asks for it, but letting him navigate.”
And is Cheverie-Leonard losing his motivation? He figured it out himself: absolutely not.
“He’s not a quitter, not by any means,” said Travis Yang, the director of esports competition, who works closely with Cheverie-Leonard.
Yang knows there’s no way this energetic, self-driven kid, who holds himself to a high standard, cares deeply about both his team and the program, and checks in with him every week, would ever back down.
“He’s the captain of his team. He’s a student-athlete. He has no responsibilities outside of that,” Yang said. “Nonetheless, he will go out of his way to talk to people, to see how they’re doing in the room. He remembers if they had a match, he’ll ask how the match went.”
Every Monday, Yang knows there will be a whole bunch of updates and questions from Cheverie-Leonard that await him. And when he doesn’t get that long message, he knows the 20-year-old will pop up in the room and smirk, “It’s Monday, Travis. You know what this means.” And they will talk.
There is no way that kid gives up. No way.
“It is times of self-doubt where I need to look in the mirror and be like, ‘Nah, I’ve worked too hard to give up now.’” Cheverie-Leonard said.
Just think of everything he has already achieved here in Syracuse. He has a trip to Mississippi covered by the university, a varsity backpack that says Syracuse Esports and an orange jersey with the school logo on the front and his family name on the back.
“That’s something that didn’t happen freshman year,” Cheverie-Leonard said. “And I was shouting from the rooftops, ‘Pay attention to esports. We’re gonna build something big here.’ Nobody cared.”
“But I’m the kind of person who, when you say I can’t do something, I’m going to do everything in my power to do it and make sure you’re watching while I do it.”
Cheverie-Leonard thinks the most important thing he got from his family is his stubbornness. He loves proving people wrong.
He showed those who were in doubt six varsity teams, an esports conference and new facilities built bottom-up.
“I love the confidence that it instills in him,” Cheverie said. “I was so nervous for him that he was going to go to this big school and be a small fish in a big pond. And I absolutely am blown away at the fact that he single-handedly made a name for himself at that school, and I could not be prouder of him for it.”
“The esports kid” has become Cheverie-Leonard’s tagline to students at Syracuse. Meanwhile, he is a trustworthy captain to Yang, a happy but also locked-in brother to Graham, and more importantly, a beloved son to Cheverie.
“He made a difference at that university,” Cheverie said. “And to me, there’s nothing as a parent more rewarding than seeing your child make a dent in the world.”
And Cheverie-Leonard’s stubbornness will continue driving him forward.
“I always say the day I retire or quit from esports is the day I can call this a waste of time,” Cheverie-Leonard said. “But as long as I’m still going, then it’s no time wasted at all.”