The most important event in pro Rocket League is on the horizon – the World Championship. Before that, though, came the final split of the season. With Worlds coming up, Dignitas decided it was time to bring a coach onto the team, and they picked Nicholas “Nick” Marrone to come in and do the job. We had the chance to sit down and talk with Nick about joining the team and what his impressions have been up to this point.

Hey, Nick! Welcome to Dignitas. How does it feel to be a part of the team?

Nick: Dignitas is such a legendary organization who has been in the scene since 2018. They were World Champions and that’s still the expectation. It’s definitely new and everything feels a lot bigger and better.

You’ve been around Rocket League for quite a while. What made you decide you wanted to be a Rocket League coach and how did you get your start in the scene?

Nick: I’ve always enjoyed coaching and managing. I actually gave up playing soccer in high school just because I wanted to help coach and manage. I enjoyed it more. There was also the realism of what I was going to do when I stopped playing, and the most obvious route was coaching and managing. I really enjoy trying to understand everything in life as opposed to just going through the motions.

In Rocket League, it was very similar. I was like, ‘Nope, I am not good enough to go pro!’ One of my friends made a pick-up team that I coached, which was Ahduhm, Kirii and hockE. We had some okay runs! Most notable was probably finishing 9th – 12th in North America in the Spring Skirmish, as well as taking down Cloud9 in a different event. But yeah, I just kind of realized that I wasn’t going to go pro, so the next best thing was coaching and helping players out.

So, before coming to Dignitas, you coached Team Queso (now Moist Esports). While coaching there, you saw a very significant uptick in their results. What do you think went into that huge boom and how do you feel you can help your new team achieve similar things?

Nick: With Queso, I think it was experience and getting past the mental block. If you look at the results with Queso, the big thing was that we went, I think, 1-8 in game 5s. We just kept losing game 5s or game 7s against the best teams. But, we could take them to match point. It was just getting the mental right. When we won a game 5 against Misfits in the qualifier, though, everything kind of clicked from there because we knew we could do it.

There’s a huge mental difference between saying you can do it and actually doing it. I think the big thing coming into Dignitas is trying to rediscover that Fall Split form and building for Worlds. Obviously, right now, it sucks to not have the same success they had earlier in the season, but at the end of the day, this isn’t the endgame. I think if you ask any player in the world if they’d rather go to a Major or win a World Championship, it would be the latter. So we’re building for that.

Absolutely! So, what was the process like of joining Dignitas? What went into the decision?

Nick: So, after I got released from Queso, I was actually trialing with Veloce Esports, which is Senzo, Twiz, and Smw. But, I was also working with Dignitas. I was kind of a pain in the butt because I was always asking the guys for updates. So, I did Regional Event 1 with Veloce, as the Middle East regional was before the European regional. If I didn’t get the Dignitas spot, that was who I was going with. It was basically a lot of trying out for multiple weeks, which I understand, because the team has to do their vetting.

When you did finally land with Dignitas, what were some of your very first impressions of the team?

Nick: The environment was definitely different coming in. It was something we talked a lot about, we wanted to make sure our team culture was strong. There was a bit of awkwardness that we needed to get sorted out, and it’s honestly a lot better now. That way, we’ll be able to make a lot of progress inside the servers. The happier and more motivated we are, the more we’re going to have success.

Tying in to that, I’m sure you guys were hoping for better results throughout the Spring Split. But, do you still feel like good progress is being made?

Nick: Yeah, I think there’s progress. Obviously, not quite as much as we would have liked because the first two regionals of Spring were basically scrapped. But, I think we saw some good positives in Regional Event 3. We’re working on how we want to make the right changes to our play, as well as balancing general hours with quality practice time. There’s definitely progress both in and outside the game. Are we where we want to be? No. Our results aren’t the best right now. It’s been up and down – we’ve seen progress, our scrims are going very well. But, at the end of the day, we need to translate it for Worlds.

Nick, thanks for taking the time to sit down and chat! Are there any shout outs you’d like to give? And where can the people keep up with you?

Nick: The only social media I really use is Twitter, so people can keep up with me there @NickOnRL. And shout out to my mom! I took this semester off from college and she was very supportive. She told me to focus on this and see what happens. We’re bouncing back!