EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts Last Edited: 2018-03-07 05:46:54 #1 Interview With JHow



Interview by: EsportsJohn





is a Heroes of the Storm caster for the HGC and has been a staple community figure in the North American scene for over two years. Now with a full-time position casting the premiere league in Los Angeles, he's become synonymous with the esport and its culture, but his journey isn't over yet. In fact, it's just begun.



Some know him for his tall stature, some for his sense of humor, but what strikes me the most about Josh is his genuine love for the game and, to be honest, ludicrous work ethic. As someone who has encountered JHow from time to time throughout the last two years, it has been inspiring to hear how he talks about the game and his work, and I wanted to try to capture that in an interview. I debated for a long time whether to do a long-form writeup, but I feel his words are best suited to speak for themselves. If there's anything to take away here, it's to never give up on doing something you love.











Let's start with your big breakthrough. The first time a lot of eyes were on you was at Heroes Rising in January 2016. How did you get invited to cast that event?





I had connected with some people in the scene. I was about to come home from work one day, and somebody I knew from the scene—iKhoN from the 2ARC team back in the day—messaged me and said, “Hey, there’s a qualifier for this event, and they need a caster. Would you be interested?” So I left work early and just floored it home, sat down, logged in, and casted the final qualifier for



Then there was an open spot for a B stream with no pay at Heroes Rising. Somebody offered to fly me out there, so it was a very short-notice thing that happened. It was a few months before that that I got a foot in the door to start doing some amateur tournaments, and I had been connected with somebody that I was pretty unfamiliar with—he was saying that he was going to run his own tournament and things like that. I was working with different people, and I was doing as much work as I possibly could for any and every tournament that would let me do work. And so, it was just a matter of connecting with people.I had connected with some people in the scene. I was about to come home from work one day, and somebody I knew from the scene—iKhoN from the 2ARC team back in the day—messaged me and said, “Hey, there’s a qualifier for this event, and they need a caster. Would you be interested?” So I left work early and just floored it home, sat down, logged in, and casted the final qualifier for Heroes Rising . And that was the first time that people saw me a little bit.Then there was an open spot for a B stream with no pay at Heroes Rising. Somebody offered to fly me out there, so it was a very short-notice thing that happened.



But that wasn't the first time you had ever done anything in esports, right? How did you get into esports in the first place?







JHow and his 2s buddy after winning a 2v2 Halo:CE tournament



Originally, you could say it was all the way back then. We just called it competition. We just knew that we wanted to play, and that’s just how things existed back then. So it was always that very casual approach for me. It was never anything that I hardcore dove into, but the original “esports” for me was Halo 1, actually. Honestly, the first esports thing that I ever did...we didn’t really call it “esports”, we just called it a “Halo tournament”. Going back, like way back, to original Halo, we would compete in regional tournaments. We would go to a gaming cafe or whatever they were called at the time, and we would play at local tournaments in Kentucky where I was originally from. We had one guy that we knew that went to bigger tournaments throughout the country, and he was like the Halo god at our college.Originally, you could say it was all the way back then. We just called it competition. We just knew that we wanted to play, and that’s just how things existed back then. So it was always that very casual approach for me. It was never anything that I hardcore dove into, but the original “esports” for me was Halo 1, actually.



Awesome! So after Heroes Rising, things really picked up for you. Can you sum up the wild ride that was 2016 going into 2017?

2016 was really difficult for me. It was something that I had obviously been working towards—to be involved in the esports scene, Heroes in particular. [For me] it was the first time you had that drive to be a part of something. You didn’t know what it was going to be, but you knew that you wanted to be a part of it, and it was just such an amazing experience.



Where did that drive come from?





I didn’t really pick it up right away, but when I did pick it up, it was that instant drive of...you know, Diablo’s nice because it’s a single player game, but then there was something about the competition of 5v5. I’m from a sports background, and where I grew up, competition was everything in my life. That competitive nature of Heroes of the Storm really appealed to me. When I saw it as an esport and I saw the excitement and I saw how fun it was, I knew that I wanted to be a part of that.



It really opened the door from the



When I got to 2016, it was just a matter of waiting for an opportunity, working for an opportunity. It was a struggle because you never knew if that opportunity was going to show up. So Heroes Rising happened, and a member from Blizzard who was working on Heroes of the Storm pulled me aside afterwards and was like, “Hey, I like what you’re doing. Just keep doing it.” And that was a very positive step for me. There was no promise, there was no anything other than to just keep working at it, and it felt good for recognition. So that was January.



Qualifiers for Spring came in February, and I didn’t get one of the eight spots, but one night—I think it was Kendric—had to go to sleep or something, and I got an opportunity to cast one weekend of the qualifiers.







I knew that I could be good enough, and I just needed an opportunity, and so I did that. Still, I was waiting and waiting and waiting, and it wasn’t until a chance meeting with Dreadnaught that we casted a small amateur tournament in March of that year. In the closing part of the tournament, at 1am in the morning, I made a comment about some of the content that I was working on because I was working on a ton of Heroes content just trying to do something. We kind of connected and talked for about an hour, hour and a half, afterwards about some stuff. Him and I connected a little bit. I wouldn’t say a lot at the time, but sometimes it’s about connections.



Qualifiers came up about a week or two later for the Summer Championship, and there were eight spots because ESL was running qualifiers, and it all community casted...also, I’m one of the eight people. And then all of a sudden, with short notice, they asked me to do DreamHack Austin.



That was pretty much when the ride began. At that point and beyond, it was just a whirlwind of events managing a full-time job and trying to travel to all the events. That was how it all started. I don’t know. I love competition. When I first picked up Heroes of the Storm, I was probably just like everybody else where it was just a very casual thing, and they played other Blizzard games. I’ve played everything from StarCraft to World of Warcraft to Diablo, so it was very appealing to me. Heroes of the Storm was there, and I knew it was there for a while, but I didn’t really play it because I had a full-time job and I was working on Diablo content. So that was a big portion of my time.I didn’t really pick it up right away, but when I did pick it up, it was that instant drive of...you know, Diablo’s nice because it’s a single player game, but then there was something about the competition of 5v5. I’m from a sports background, and where I grew up, competition was everything in my life. That competitive nature of Heroes of the Storm really appealed to me. When I saw it as an esport and I saw the excitement and I saw how fun it was, I knew that I wanted to be a part of that.It really opened the door from the Diablo YouTube channel . I actually realized I could be something of a personality instead of just a guy casually playing video games, and so the Diablo part was a big stepping stone for me to get into that.When I got to 2016, it was just a matter of waiting for an opportunity, working for an opportunity. It was a struggle because you never knew if that opportunity was going to show up. So Heroes Rising happened, and a member from Blizzard who was working on Heroes of the Storm pulled me aside afterwards and was like, “Hey, I like what you’re doing. Just keep doing it.” And that was a very positive step for me. There was no promise, there was no anything other than to just keep working at it, and it felt good for recognition. So that was January.Qualifiers for Spring came in February, and I didn’t get one of the eight spots, but one night—I think it was Kendric—had to go to sleep or something, and I got an opportunity to cast one weekend of the qualifiers.I knew that I could be good enough, and I just needed an opportunity, and so I did that. Still, I was waiting and waiting and waiting, and it wasn’t until a chance meeting with Dreadnaught that we casted a small amateur tournament in March of that year. In the closing part of the tournament, at 1am in the morning, I made a comment about some of the content that I was working on because I was working on a ton of Heroes content just trying to do something. We kind of connected and talked for about an hour, hour and a half, afterwards about some stuff. Him and I connected a little bit. I wouldn’t say a lot at the time, but sometimes it’s about connections.Qualifiers came up about a week or two later for the Summer Championship, and there were eight spots because ESL was running qualifiers, and it all community casted...also, I’m one of the eight people. And then all of a sudden, with short notice, they asked me to do DreamHack Austin.That was pretty much when the ride began. At that point and beyond, it was just a whirlwind of events managing a full-time job and trying to travel to all the events. That was how it all started.



That's crazy. How did you get through that long wait? Was there any point where you wanted to give up?

The emotional side of working on something that you don’t know if you’re going to obtain was very difficult for a long time.



This is not an exaggeration when I tell people this: I would wake up at 6:45 every morning, I would go to work at 7:45, and I would come home by 4:40-5:00. I would put on a pot of coffee, I would start working on Heroes by 5:15-5:30, and every single day of the week, I would work until anywhere between 1:00-3:00 in the morning, I would sleep, and I would do it again. The only day I allowed myself to sleep in was Saturday morning, and that’s when I would get eight hours of sleep...and then all weekend, [Heroes content] was all I would do.



And so the mental grind was incredibly difficult. It was that realization of “I’ve found something I wanted to do.” The burnout thing never entered my mind, and it still hasn’t. I think I realized that when I have the passion or the love to want to do something, I’ve never considered burnout an option. The struggle is there of not sleeping and working incredibly hard to get somewhere with no promise and no sign of light. That was incredibly difficult for me for a long time. I can remember there were many days where I didn’t know if it was going to happen, and I’d be driving to work, and you know, you’re trying to listen to motivational stuff to keep motivated, to keep grinding...it was extremely emotional for me for a long time. There’d be mornings where I’d be like, “God, I’m going to this job that I don’t want to go to,” and you really want something else but you can’t have it.



That was very much a thing for me for a long period of time. That was months and months and months of work. I have failed projects that have never seen the light of day. I have a failed website that I spent a couple thousand dollars on and all kinds of stuff that will never see the light of day because I didn’t think it was good enough to put it out there. I didn’t think I was in a position to put it out there. There was always something that I’ve worked on that never quite made it. So there was definitely a struggle for a long period of time, and you’re never fully settled, you’re never fully satisfied.



And it's still not enough, is it? Despite having "made" it into the HGC as a full-time caster, you're still working hard, aren't you?









So...you can never really be “okay”. I think the minute that you become comfortable with what you’re doing is the minute you kind of lose it. I don’t think you can ever really become comfortable...you can become more comfortable than stressing yourself out every day, but I never had the mentality that you should be satisfied with where you’re at. You should always want to do better. That’s a mentality I think I’ve always had in life, and it’s something that I carry forward with me now, even into casting. Yeah, always. The casting thing, it’s kind of like life in a sense. You have to constantly evolve...it’s just in esports, you have to do it quicker. You’re out there far more often than you would be in any form or fashion, and so you always have to stay sharp. You have to keep up with things. You have to take every bit of feedback you get, whether it’s positive or negative, and you have to try to refine that. You gotta pick and choose what part you can afford to work on at that time.So...you can never really be “okay”. I think the minute that you become comfortable with what you’re doing is the minute you kind of lose it. I don’t think you can ever really become comfortable...you can become more comfortable than stressing yourself out every day, but I never had the mentality that you should be satisfied with where you’re at. You should always want to do better. That’s a mentality I think I’ve always had in life, and it’s something that I carry forward with me now, even into casting.



Any motivational material you recommend?

Secretly, I have an entire playlist on YouTube, but it’s kind of like…[mine]. Like, it’s been watched by millions of people, but people don’t know it’s my playlist. And so it’s one of those things that’s very personal to me because I can actually listen to those things and equate it to moments in time, and I want them to be mine. They’re very personal to me.



There’s a lot of good stuff out there. I’ll say that much.



Are there any particular skills you learned along the way or any life advice you picked up in your struggle to succeed?

There’s two big things for me. Doing Diablo YouTube...if you actually go back and watch my first videos, I’m very monotone. Despite being animated in real life, I was never quite sure what type of voice to have, and Diablo allowed me to develop a voice, more of a personality-style voice than anything. It taught me a few things there.



And then the other big thing is...I’m tall, right? [laughs] I’m a lot taller than other people. So it was very hard for me because I knew on screen how tall I looked. For a long period of time, when we were at events at the desk, I would stand with my legs split to appear less tall, and it really affected my body language. I was not able move and use my hands a lot. I was not able to move, period, because when you’re standing like that, it’s just not going to happen. Finally, I was just like, “...the hell with it, I’m just gonna stand up straight and be myself,” and once I started doing that, it allowed me to be much more comfortable on the desk.



You've always been very straightforward and friendly with the people you meet. Do you think your positive attitude affects your ability to make connections?





Community-wise, I’m very excited always. Going back to then and even now—it doesn’t matter—I could sit around and talk Heroes all day. If it strays to talk about real life, I’m excited to talk about that as well. Talking to people that have a common bond is always really cool.







If somebody wants to come up and talk about a draft or one player in draft, I’ll sit there and I’ll probably ramble on for like five or ten minutes, and they’ll probably be like, “Oh, I just wanted to say hello, and now this guy is talking to me for ten minutes about a Samuro pick” or something like that. [laughs] So I feel bad, but I love meeting everybody...I’m sorry, you opened Pandora’s box! As far as the community goes, I think the hard part I’ve had is that.... I’ve grown up in a very sports-centric environment with brothers, and so your personal relationships at work...you become more family-style because you experience so many things with people. And then sometimes treat them like family and brothers, and sometimes the jokes don’t go over the same [chuckles]...and so you have to adapt to that.Community-wise, I’m very excited always. Going back to then and even now—it doesn’t matter—I could sit around and talk Heroes all day. If it strays to talk about real life, I’m excited to talk about that as well. Talking to people that have a common bond is always really cool.If somebody wants to come up and talk about a draft or one player in draft, I’ll sit there and I’ll probably ramble on for like five or ten minutes, and they’ll probably be like, “Oh, I just wanted to say hello, and now this guy is talking to me for ten minutes about a Samuro pick” or something like that. [laughs] So I feel bad, but I love meeting everybody...I’m sorry, you opened Pandora’s box!



How do you think your sports background and the sports-style elements in your casting have affected Heroes esports?





I had no idea what I’m going for. No one told me whether I’m casting or an analyst. They just told me, “We want you there.” Okay. I show up, and they’re like, “You’re an analyst, and here’s a replay box.” Okay, I guess I’ll learn on the fly! And so I did it, and I don’t know where it came from...I guess it’s just all the years of sports that I’ve watched. I had no idea I was “Boom!”-ing so much. I had no idea how I would do it. It just happened, and that’s the only thing I can tell you.







I know that it’s a balance...you don’t want to go too full sports. Some people like it, some don’t, but I think that’s just gonna have to be something that everybody deals with. Not everybody’s gonna like your style, so that’s cool. No idea, no idea. I actually was wrapping up the ESL event...it was Sunday afternoon, and they said, “Would you like to come to Sweden?” [DreamHack] Sweden was on Thursday. I had no idea I was going to Sweden until that week, and so that was part of the whole 2016 ride. Everything just happened so fast.I had no idea what I’m going for. No one told me whether I’m casting or an analyst. They just told me, “We want you there.” Okay. I show up, and they’re like, “You’re an analyst, and here’s a replay box.” Okay, I guess I’ll learn on the fly! And so I did it, and I don’t know where it came from...I guess it’s just all the years of sports that I’ve watched. I had no idea I was “Boom!”-ing so much. I had no idea how I would do it. It just happened, and that’s the only thing I can tell you.I know that it’s a balance...you don’t want to go too full sports. Some people like it, some don’t, but I think that’s just gonna have to be something that everybody deals with. Not everybody’s gonna like your style, so that’s cool.



I would say that viewers in Heroes of the Storm are very critical of casters compared to other esports....

[laughs] No comment!



So let's finish things up by talking about the game a bit. First of all, who's your favorite hero and why?

Ooh, I know if I don’t say Butcher, I’m gonna get blasted, but Sylvanas…. I love the macro the game, I love the mental aspect, I love controlling rotations, I love just having control over a game. I don’t think anyone does it better than Sylvanas. Zagara is a close second, though.



Sylvanas is my most played hero by far. Abathur is top four as well. I love the [battleground] manipulation heroes.



What's your favorite map?

Tomb of the Spider Queen, 100%. It’s my favorite to play, it’s my favorite to cast. Tomb of the Spider Queen is my favorite. It’s the best.



I love the design, I love the colors, I love the fact that questing stacks do so well on that map. I love the fact that there’s always a teamfight, there’s always a way to come back. There’s a lot of subtle things mid game that always get missed, and you’re never really out of it. Outside of the spell armor on the knights right now, it’s a really good map.



Speaking of the spell armor on knights, what do you think about the overall battleground changes?

One of the best things that’s ever happened to this game. I actually talked about this on my stream, the implications that it has on the game, and snowball mechanics. I think it really balanced the game in multiple ways, and I think it’s made it a lot more competitive in multiple ways. This is the part where I’m saying: I could literally ramble on about this for like a solid hour, but in short, I think the gameplay changes are probably some of the best changes they’ve ever put into the game.



It’s probably above [the scaling changes]. Remember that I look at this through the competitive lens more than the Hero League lens, but overall, I still think it’s one of the best changes they’ve ever made by far.



Cool to hear. Thank you so much for talking about your journey and your love of the game, but it's time to wrap it up. Any shoutouts?





It’s mostly casters, but it goes beyond that to the people behind the scenes—Blizzard, production—they’re all incredibly amazing people.



Just my co-workers. They’re incredibly talented people. They keep my grounded, they’re amazing people to be around, and honestly, I wouldn’t be here without the support that they’ve given me.It’s mostly casters, but it goes beyond that to the people behind the scenes—Blizzard, production—they’re all incredibly amazing people.











Chris "EsportsJohn" Meek is truly inspired by JHow's relentless drive and positive attitude in the esports scene, and he hopes to make an impact of his own someday as well. You can follow him on Twitter or visit his website to learn more about him and his work.





Josh "JHow" Howard is a Heroes of the Storm caster for the HGC and has been a staple community figure in the North American scene for over two years. Now with a full-time position casting the premiere league in Los Angeles, he's become synonymous with the esport and its culture, but his journey isn't over yet. In fact, it's just begun.Some know him for his tall stature, some for his sense of humor, but what strikes me the most about Josh is his genuine love for the game and, to be honest, ludicrous work ethic. As someone who has encountered JHow from time to time throughout the last two years, it has been inspiring to hear how he talks about the game and his work, and I wanted to try to capture that in an interview. I debated for a long time whether to do a long-form writeup, but I feel his words are best suited to speak for themselves. If there's anything to take away here, it's to never give up on doing something you love.

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