JWU Magazine Winter 2020

JWU MAGAZINE WINTER 2020: Learning Beyond the Classroom

ESPORTS ON DEMAND

JWU eSports Team

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE COHEA

JOHNSON & WALES is one of the first universities in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) — and one of the first in New England — to establish an eSports competitive club team. With more than 10 million players worldwide, eSports are entering the mainstream, and analysts project the global eSports market will exceed

$1.6 billion by 2021.

Soon after the eSports Center opened last fall, more than 70 students joined Coach Aaron Colaicomo at team tryouts for Overwatch, League of Legends and Super Smash Bros., three of the most popular games in eSports today. Ultimately, Colaiacomo signed 63 students to the team’s roster, including one player who ranks in the top 500 in the world, two Grand Masters who are in the top 2,500 and two Masters players. “This has been one of the most inquisitive group of students I’ve met,” says Colaiacomo, who says the players span diverse majors. The club will have six to eight competitive teams and each can have anywhere from two to six players, as well as substitutes. Teams will have set weekly practices, scrimmages, Video on Demand (VOD) reviews, and strategy and analysis meetings.

At the 1,588 square-foot eSports Center, students will find 16 state-of-the-art gaming stations powered by Alienware. “The stations will include 144hz 25-inch one-millisecond response time monitors, Nividia 2070 graphics cards, 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM, Crosair void pro headsets, and blue and white Essential Racing [gaming] chairs,” says Darrell Miller, assistant director of Student Involvement & Leadership for Operations. “The center will also include the newest consoles, such as Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Students will play games of various genres based on their interests.”According to Colaiacomo, JWU’s program is already ahead of the game: “This is the first university that I’ve worked with [to build an eSports team] where a dedicated space was ready before the official start of the program.”

— Damaris R. Teixeira

JWU eSports Center

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE COHEA

SECOND CHANCES

Corinne Williams '23 in the Baking Lab.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE COHEA

Attending Johnson & Wales is the apex of a dream for someone who embodies the tenacious JWU attitude

CORINNE WILLIAMS ’23 wasn’t the type of child who threw tantrums — unless someone switched her gingerbread mix for Play-Doh. “Then she’d have a fit!” laughs Corinne’s mother, Kimya Motley. While classmates tuned into Hannah Montana, Williams would race off the bus to sit on the couch watching Rachael Ray with her mother. The first-year Baking & Pastry Arts student aspires to host her own Food Network show — and to beat Bobby Flay in one of his televised culinary competitions — (“running a restaurant seems like too much work,” she suspects). Besides interning at Disney World, Williams would love to study abroad in Italy, where she can learn from the masters of her favorite dessert — tiramisu.

In second grade Williams could whip up a chicken noodle pesto dish; by 13 she had mastered crème brulee. That was also the time when she decided on a culinary career — a fixation that eclipsed ballerina dreams. Her aunt suggested Johnson & Wales, so Williams began researching the university and knew at 13 she wanted to attend. Years later, she fell in love with JWU during a campus visit. Motley had made what she calls her “good news (tortilla) soup” when they received a letter from JWU and learned that not only was Williams accepted, she had received some scholarship money. Motley captured her daughter’s impromptu “happy dance” and posted it online.

The dance was a celebration for other reasons. When Williams was 10, she was shot in the head by her stepfather. Motley, who was estranged from her abusive husband, had recently filed for divorce. As she dropped her daughter at daycare, the former military man shot Motley four times with a .38; if she hadn’t turned her head at two pivotal moments, it’s unlikely she would have survived.

According to Motley, her daughter’s skull was essentially “liquefied” by the bullet he fired at Corinne. “At first, the surgeon said Corinne wouldn’t make it 24 hours,” she recalls. “After surgery, he predicted she wouldn’t survive the next 72 hours. When she made it three days, he said she would be paralyzed. Once Corinne began moving, the doctor had a mold made of her skull that he keeps in his office. He said, ‘I want to look it every day to remind myself why I come to work.’ ”

Williams was in a coma for more than 10 days, lived at the hospital for five weeks and then a year of rehabilitation followed. Once voted the most athletic girl in her class, she had to learn how to read, talk, walk and feed herself again. Before the shooting, she was a gifted math student, but Williams sustained damage to the frontal lobe, which controls executive functioning; the math tutoring she receives at JWU helps with her nutrition studies.

“I want to study here — it’s not like high school,” says Williams. “I don’t mind the tutoring because I’m doing what I love; I am proud of myself for studying.”

“Corinne used baking to help her heal during that time,” says Motley. “When she was just trying to walk, she didn’t show the emotional side of what she was going through. But I saw her tenacity come out. There is a boldness to Corinne now; before she was very shy and withdrawn. There are times she struggles academically and will say, ‘This is because of the shooting,’ but I remind her how much she’s accomplished. She inspired me. There was a day after the shooting when I was feeling sorry for myself because my jaw was wired shut and I wouldn’t be able to eat anything at Thanksgiving. I thought, ‘Who am I to complain about my mouth being wired shut when this child is fighting for every inch of her life back?’ ”

After what her daughter endured, Motley — who later founded Haven of Light International, a nonprofit designed to help families rebuild spiritually, physically, emotionally and financially after abuse — was determined to find the means to finance her daughter’s college education. She contacted The Rachael Ray show and related their story about how Ray had inspired Williams to cook at age five. The producers invited both women on the show, where Ray surprised them by pledging to cover tuition for Williams’ first year at JWU.

Asked how she hopes to pay for the remaining three years, the perennially optimistic Motley has faith that everything will work out. “The journey she has taken to get here blows my mind,” she says. “I just want to see Corinne live her best life — to realize her dreams whatever they may be.”

— Denise Dowling

For more information about Motley’s nonprofit visit havenoflightint.org

www.jwu.edu