Liz Lombardo watches the Overwatch League from the fetal position on her couch. She watches the majority of OWL matches every week and then moves onto Overwatch Contenders.

"She actually watches more than I do," Dallas Fuel DPS Zack "ZachaREEE" Lombardo told The Dallas Morning News. "There was a Mother's Day event at the Overwatch League. They did a trivia thing [testing the moms] on Overwatch knowledge.

"My mom got every question right."

She was one of five OWL moms honored on stream for Mother's Day in May, and the OWL website dubbed her a "top-tier" mom in the league, active on Twitter and unabashed in her love of her son and the game.

Liz said that Zack approached her on a family trip to Disney. Zack had been playing video games, but not in professional competitive leagues. Before he started playing Overwatch competitively, he just wanted to stream. Esports -- and the possibilities it brought -- were a whole new world.

From soccer to esports

"We were in the pool, and he started telling us that he wanted to stream," she said. "He asked for a 144hz monitor," she said.

Zack did get the monitor, though it took a few months to convince his parents about streaming.

"That's when I started practicing hard and having people interested in trying me out."

Zack "ZachaREEE" Lombardo and Liz Lombardo (Courtesy of the Lombardo family)

Video games were nothing new for the family. Liz said one of her older sons grew up hosting LAN parties for World of Warcraft at their house. The group of friends would camp out at the Lombardo household, cords snaking around the house, kids everywhere. Zack was young -- eight or so -- and would watch from the background.

But esports was different: At age 16, Zack was recruited to play for Renegades, a position that would require him to move to the team house in Michigan.

"He was in high school, playing travel soccer, and he was already being recruited or looked at by colleges for soccer," Liz Lombardo said. "The kid had a 4.5 GPA and scored 5s on all his AP exams. My idea that he was going to go Ivy League and have a soccer scholarship. That was the path we were going on with him."

But then Overwatch happened.

"But it wasn't his path," she said.

Overwatch was.

The best fan in all of Overwatch

Zack, now 18, is one of Overwatch's elite players, living in Los Angeles and playing a video game professionally. Zack finished high school in May -- graduated summa cum laude -- and is playing for the Dallas Fuel. But before he made it into the OWL-- or even became age-eligible to play -- he had to convince his parents to let him move to Michigan. It worked.

"I needed to let him do this," she said. It was an opportunity that so few would be able to actually experience.

Zack spent six months on Renegades until the team disbanded in 2017. From there, he joined Fusion University -- Philadelphia Fusion's academy team -- and moved back to his home in Florida.

"It was incredible to watch it going from the disappointment from Renegades not working out to the immense success that they had with Fusion Uni," Liz said.

Now, Liz is immersed in the OWL scene. She watches all the games, hears everything the casters and analysts are saying not only about Dallas, but her son. She sees the criticism and comments from fans and OWL viewers.

And it's not always just criticism. Sometimes it's harassment.

"For some reason, Zack is a magnet for it," Liz Lombardo said. "I can't even begin to tell you the vile stuff he gets, that I've gotten."

When Zack first got involved in competitive Overwatch, she wanted to know everything. She spent time on Twitter, on Reddit and watching games. She was learning about the game, but also about what professional players face from the public.

Zachary "ZachaREEE" Lombardoo - sits for a portrait after a practice scrimmage for the Overwatch League team Dallas Fuel on Friday, June 28, 2019 in Glendale, Calif. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News) (Patrick T. Fallon)

"I would search for his [Twitter] mentions, I would search his name," she said. "I would read the comments on the Dallas tweets."

She doesn't do it anymore, and that's something she learned from the players during the Overwatch World Cup.

At lunch with some players, Reddit came up. And they told it to her straight: Don't read Reddit. Avoid the negativity.

"It doesn't bother Zack," she said. "He's able to let it go. But as a parent, it's really hard to see some of the stuff that gets written about him."

Instead, she chats with fans on Twitter and in Discord servers.

"A lot of the people that follow my mom say she's the most supportive and the best parent they've seen," Zack said. "She's got her own fanbase."

A strong support staff

Her fans extend beyond just Dallas' fanbase and into the team itself; when she visits Zack in Los Angeles, she'll sometimes cook for the team. She bakes them cookies. And when she's not there to make them fresh, she'll send them to the team.

(On the day she spoke with The News, the interview was pushed back by around 10 minutes -- she was tracking down a package that was supposed to arrive at the Dallas office that day.)

Shout out @dallasfuel team mom @Liz_Lombardo for the 10lb loot box of pure joy. 📦💙 #BurnBlue pic.twitter.com/TtJRu7YFEr — Jay Hairston 🔜 PAX West (@JayHairston) August 7, 2019

"She sent me some a couple weeks ago and there were a bunch of snacks," Zack said. "She sends me bath bombs to help me relax. She usually sends cookies -- one of our media guys messes around with her and talks about how my mom's cookies are really good."

Sure, there are still snacks to be made and games to watch, but being an Overwatch mom is not like being a soccer mom, she said.

"This is so much worse," she laughed when I asked her about her nerves watching her son play. "I stress so much."

Zack thinks it's because it's a different way to watch.

"With soccer, they're watching from the side," he said. "But in Overwatch, they can actually watch directly from my camera.

"They see everything. It's a really different experience."

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