Seattle Surge believe they are CDL title contenders with new roster Twitter: @SamSRS\/Seattle SurgeAfter two unsuccessful years in the Call of Duty League, the Seattle Surge hit the reset button. Releasing their 2021 roster, the hunt began for a team that could bring them success. That journey began with the hiring of head coach Sam \u2018Fenix\u2019 Spencer, who spoke to Dexerto about the new-look Surge team he was bringing to the CDL. Coaching has always been a part of Fenix\u2019s life. He grew up watching his father coach American Football and after time in the military, Fenix donned the proverbial whistle himself. He made a name for himself at Team Singularity, coaching future CDL stars Jamie \u2018Insight\u2019 Craven and Tobias \u2018CleanX\u2019 J\u00f8nsson and helping the team earn a top-12 finish the 2019 CWL Championships. After spending March of 2020 with The Atlas Lions, Fenix returned to Singularity. The team went on to secure 11 podium finishes in 14 events across 2020. Leaving Singularity in mid-December of 2020, Fenix spent the Cold War season with EastR and WestR. Working with players such as GRVTY, FeLo, John, Zapitus, Venom, and Sib, Fenix-coached teams won eight events at the Challenger level. Fenix was announced as the new head coach of the Seattle Surge on September 17 and is ready to give Seattle a Call of Duty team the city can be proud of. The right roster for Seattle The Surge announced their 2022 roster on September 20, after teasing the identity of each member with a Morse Code message. The roster was put together by a backroom team led by Fenix and new General Manager Brandon \u2018Novus\u2019 Hewitt. Taking the stage for the Surge in 2022 would be Lamar \u2018Accuracy\u2019 Abedi, Makenzie \u2018Mack\u2019 Kelley, Daunte \u2018Sib\u2019 Gray, and Amer \u2018Pred\u2019 Zulbeari. Accuracy \u201cI have to give a lot of credit to Lamar,\u201d Fenix told Dexerto, \u201cAs a veteran, he could have wanted more say but he trusted me and Brandon a lot to build this team and put him in a new circle around a bunch of new, young talent.\u201d Accuracy had been a starter for Minnesota R\u00d8KKR in 2021 before being benched ahead of the Stage Four major. The 25-year-old has been present in Call of Duty\u2019s professional scene for nearly a decade but was blamed for R\u00d8KKR\u2019s struggles in the Stage Three major, where they finished 10th. However, Fenix saw the veteran\u2019s value and was eager to make him a key part of Seattle\u2019s lineup. \u201cI don\u2019t need my main AR to be a superstar,\u201d Fenix said, \u201cI just need them to be someone who can lead the team, and mirror the way I act and say things. And when I met with Lamar, he was the best at getting the best out of young players.\u201d Fenix also assured his new main AR that the team was being built around him. \u201cI know everyone loves to talk about how Lamar got benched but I told Lamar that he is my guy. I am bringing him here to lead this team and help these young players grow. Lamar is my Kurt Warner, I know we are going to do great things with him on the roster\u201d. Mack & Sib \u201cI\u2019ve known Mack since he was about 15, him and Daunte too. And I knew that if we got Mack, he would help bring the best out of Daunte. They\u2019re a little duo, those two\u201d Fenix said. Mack spent the first two seasons of the CDL in New York. However, the Subliners never clicked and the 2021 season was especially drama-filled, most notably when James \u2018Clayster\u2019 Eubanks benched himself for a month in July. Read More: 2022 CDL Rostermania – At season\u2019s end, New York looked to make moves and it was all but confirmed that Mack would not be in the lineup come 2022. Sib was an Atlanta FaZe Academy project who was never able to break into the stacked lineup in Atlanta. He spent the 2021 season on loan and spent time working with Fenix at EastR. However, Seattle represents an opportunity for Sib to finally get time as a starter, and Fenix has high hopes for him. \u201cSo many people say that Daunte is too much trouble to be worth it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey say he\u2019s this problem kid. I tell them that you just don\u2019t know how to work with him. \u201cHe\u2019s a really sweet kid, you just need to find the right approach with him. That\u2019s why I brought him in \u2014 I know how good he is and I know how to work with him.\u201d Pred If you haven\u2019t followed Call of Duty APAC Challengers, you might not be familiar with Pred. The Australian phenom is an absolute beast, and has helped lead Renegades to 28 APAC trophies across 2020 and 2021. \u201cIt was an absolute no-brainer,\u201d Fenix said of signing Pred, \u201che should have been over here a while ago but travel restrictions made that almost impossible\u201d However, aside from his talent, there was something about Pred that really stuck out to Fenix, \u201cWhen I had my first interviews with him, he was very mature and very professional. But he also understands the concept of actually getting better. The talent is already there, and the knowledge of how to become great is already there too. The sky is truly the limit with this kid.\u201d Read More: Florida Mutineers announced 2022 CDL roster – Fenix also pointed to his previous success stories to back up his predictions about the young Australian. \u201cI said the same things about Insight and CleanX and HyDra, guys that a lot of people were overlooking. And they\u2019ve all gone on to be huge.\u201d Old-school coaching Fenix takes his coaching inspiration from football legends like Nick Saban and Bill Belichick. \u201cI\u2019m what you\u2019d call an old-school coach. I don\u2019t allow phones at scrims. If we\u2019re having a meal, I don\u2019t want phones on the table, I want the players talking to one another. I expect hard work out of my players and if they aren\u2019t working hard, they\u2019re going to hear about it.\u201d But Fenix\u2019s coaching approach also places a heavy emphasis on treating the players as people. \u201cI don\u2019t see Pred, I see Amer. I don\u2019t see Accuracy, I see Lamar,\u201d Fenix explained. \u201cI know a lot of people laugh at that sort of approach but it\u2019s really important to me that my players know that I see them as people and that I care about them as people rather than products. \u201cI get to know them, I get to know their families. Because if you know that your coach sees you as more than just someone working for them, you\u2019re going to be able to work harder for that coach because you know they have your back. And you\u2019re going to want to work harder for them knowing that they care about you as a person.\u201d Unsurprisingly, Fenix is a vocal advocate of promoting strong physical and mental health for his players. \u201cWe have to get rid of all this machismo bullsh*t. If you\u2019re not doing well mentally, you can\u2019t just keep going like nothing\u2019s wrong. You have to talk to someone, you need to get the help that will make you better. Obviously, I want my players to exercise and eat right, but I also want them to be mentally healthy too. They all know they can come to me and talk to me and I will do my best to help them.\u201d And for Fenix, it\u2019s something that needs to be addressed by the league and sport as a whole. \u201cI think it should be mandatory to have physical and mental therapists in the CDL. These are things teams need, these are things the players need,\u201d he said. Putting the players first Like Saban and Belichick, Fenix vowed never to put himself ahead of his players. \u201cI asked for the team to announce me first so that the players could enjoy their own moment. I am not here to become famous or get a lot of attention. I\u2019m here to make these young men great players and to help them grow into great individuals. My dad coached his whole life and one of the biggest things he taught was that great players make great coaches. And if you don\u2019t make an impact in your player\u2019s lives, you have failed as a coach\u201d. Read More: Cammy and Toronto Ultra want a title in 2022 – This attitude extends to how Fenix interacts with the media, too. \u201cI\u2019m never going to throw my players to the wolves. If the media asks me why we lost a match, it\u2019s because I didn\u2019t do my job well enough. If they ask how I led the team to a title, it\u2019s because the team is great. \u201cI never blame the team and I never steal their credit. It\u2019s all about the guys playing the game.\u201d Expectations for 2022 \u201cWe can 100% be title contenders next year,\u201d Fenix said, \u201cI\u2019m not making promises, and I didn\u2019t make promises to my bosses when I took the job. \u201cHowever, this team is going to be really good and I think we have the talent to be one of the top teams in the league.\u201d The Surge have finished as a bottom-four team in each of the CDL\u2019s first two seasons and have been viewed as one of the league\u2019s most disappointing teams, despite fielding some of the most recognizable names in Call of Duty. \u201cWinning is success. I don\u2019t see why every team that rebuilds has to build for future success. We have the talent to contend this year and we\u2019re going to do just that,\u201d Fenix said. Whether the Surge can compete alongside the likes of the FaZe, Ultra, and R\u00d8KKR, remains to be seen. But they have assembled a talented roster, and a head coach in possession of perhaps the most important trait in his field \u2014 belief in his team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seattle Surge believe they are CDL title contenders with new roster Twitter: @SamSRS\/Seattle SurgeAfter two unsuccessful years in the Call of Duty League, the Seattle Surge hit the reset button. Releasing their 2021 roster, the hunt began for a team that could bring them success. That journey began with the hiring of head coach Sam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}