Consistency was rare for William Hernandez growing up.

He changed schools in Toronto more times than he could recall, and struggled to keep friendships because of it. The only constant in Hernandez’s life were video games, he said, but even then he didn’t believe himself to be good enough to make a life out of it.

Oh how everything changed for the Dallas Fuel’s new star, better known around the Overwatch League as Crimzo.

Crimzo was in the opposite position when the Fuel called him up in January from his Team Envy Contenders League. He was sought after, a key piece to his prior team both in skill and chemistry, and his rise was long overdue.

“Contenders was too easy for me,” Crimzo said. "It got to the point where it was boring and going into the Overwatch League and playing with and against teams with a lot of strategy is a lot more fun.”

Being with the Fuel was the easy part compared to the start of his journey to professional esports. He became a key component on a team that’s struggled in the past, and could use a little fire to compete among the league’s best.

An opening weekend illness to Benjamin “uNKOE” Chevasson immediately put Crimzo on stage against the Los Angeles Valiant and San Francisco Shock.

His whole career began with a risk, though, and he knew it at the time.

“My parents didn’t want me to quit school,” Crimzo said. “They were pushing me toward it because it was the safe option and was what I needed to be doing, and there was tug and pull in that scenario, but at a certain point they understood that I just didn’t like it.”

The Fallback

Cimzo started gaming young. His first experience was on the GameBoy Advance on a F-Zero. His older brother was the main influence in his early gaming life. Both of them struggled in school, too. Crimzo referenced it as his “behavioral issues.”

“I had a pretty rocky school life," he said. "From the beginning to the end of high school I went to eight, maybe 10 schools. It wasn’t because of my parents moving or anything, but because of behavioral issues that I had.”

That took a toll on Crimzo’s mental state, and his willingness to socialize in-person, he said.

“But I always had video games to fall back on," he said. "It was always there. I could hop on and play there.”

His parents wanted school to go well for him, but most of all for him to be happy. He’s Crimzo to the Fuel, but they still know him best as William. They were immigrants from Cuba trying to raise children whose love and passion was foreign to them.

So they focused on school.

“He was hyper and in school. He struggled to study and let others study,” Crimzo’s mother, Liset Hernandez, said. “He moved from one school to another because of that. He was so good at anything else with that kind of activity, though, including sports.”

He’d eventually calm down, but school remained difficult for him. It was so different from the things he enjoyed, like gaming, down to the way he’d grown accustomed to socializing.

“Since I moved to a lot of school I didn’t have that many friends to be honest. I was constantly moving,” Crimzo said. “I lost the aspiration of having and keeping friends. I didn’t care, basically.”

Crimzo was close to the finish line in high school, but never finished 12th grade. He stopped going altogether in 2017 and decided to fully pursue gaming.

At this point Crimzo moved past some of the self-doubt he carried with him from school to school and sometimes even brought home.

“I used to think I wasn’t as good as others, and that I couldn’t do what other people were doing because of that,” Crimzo said. “But I just played games and at some point I realized I was pretty good and could do something with this ability to play.”

Taking the Leap

Crimzo actually found the mindset to return to school for good, and he would’ve done it, too, if EnVision eSports hadn’t reached out to him in early 2018.

The change uprooted his life, and jump-started what would become a professional career including two Overwatch World Cup appearances with Canada in 2018 and 2019, two years in Contenders and an inevitable rise to OWL.

That meant moving again, but Crimzo was a master at change.

“He doesn’t miss anything,” Crimzo’s father, Seren Hernandez said. “He’s been to South Korea and Europe. He doesn’t miss a thing.”

The change was a little harder on mom. They both wanted him to finish school, but worried how life would be in an unfamiliar place after years of having lost the will to socialize.

“I’m the mother, so I miss him a bit more,” Liset said. “But I every time I see him he is so happy and I’m glad he’s like that. He’s following his dreams.”

An Overwatch team was where Crimzo was meant to be, though, he said. It’s a scenario he loved socializing because the common ground was always obvious. They were all doing what they loved.

It helped Crimzo that he was a standout, too. Five of the six players on EnVision went on to play for Team Envy in Contenders. Crimzo and Fuel tank player Ash “Trill” Powell played together at that level for most of their professional careers.

Trill got the call-up in May 2019, but Crimzo had to wait.

“I think he was OWL ready pretty much around the same time that I made the league, too,” Trill said. “A lot of our teammates were winning and were OWL ready. It’s been a while and he’s been overlooked a lot. But he’s finally here and it’s great.”

Crimzo was far from his shy self back in Canada as a kid. He developed into a glue guy, whose social presence and playful jokes elevated his teams. Other than his mechanical skill, that was actually a major contributor in having him on the Fuel.

“One of the things is that the way he interacts with his teammates, we noticed this on Envy, he is a super positive dude and isn’t afraid to make jokes and keep the atmosphere up,” Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins said. “We like that style on our team and want players that can bring that.”

Crimzo was used to change, moving from school to school and one group to another. He just got to the point where they were going his way.