Introducing Division One’s New Chief Operating Officer!

Division One has made the big step of hiring a new Chief Operating Officer (COO), Kevin Craig. Having 8-9 years of esports operations experience, he’s here to help out with the upcoming season and the future onwards. An overview and short Q&A with Kevin will help with learning about who he is and what this step means for Division One.

Kevin Craig has experience in being both a player and director in collegiate esports. He was a collegiate esports player himself and later on worked with Stony Brook University as their Esports Coordinator then later Assistant Director of Esports. Stony Brook University is also a part of the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE), which has allowed them to play in NACE’s tournaments and for Kevin Craig to obtain their Emerging Director of the Year in 2025. Division One’s first year had Stony Brook University as one of the eight competing universities. Now, Kevin’s joining Division One to help it continue to grow.

Q&A with Kevin

Caroline: What made you interested in joining Division One? Kevin: I was an esports director at Stony Brook University prior to this. I was part of Division One when it first started on the competition side of things as one of the first eight universities to kind of hop on board. From there, I was very involved with some of the developments of production and very very invested in what Division One was creating and the vision it had looking forward.

I was very impressed with both Slade and Sean and everything they were doing with the website, with management, with everything that they had planned for the future. I spoke with Slade and he and I ended up going back-and-forth on a few different ideas. Eventually, we came to terms of “hey, maybe it’s a good idea for you to join us.” So, we talked for a few months and came upon the decision to bring me on as the COO to help guide a lot of the collegiate side of things. Being in collegiate sports for the last eight-going-on-nine years now, I have a lot of insight to bring for him and for the league itself.

I was very excited to be given that opportunity as far as Division One itself goes. I thought it really does have the ability to bring together collegiate sports in a way that I think a lot of people and directors and programs want. It has a lot of visibility; it has a means of creating fandom; it has the ability to allow regular people to keep up with esports the way that you do with traditional sports. I think that’s an awesome thing that we’re building. We’re very excited to be doing it.

Caroline: How does Division One differ from your past job experiences? How is it similar? How do those skills transfer? Kevin: It’s wildly different. I formally was at a public state institution in New York, a part of the SUNY system, and that came with a lot of red tape as you can imagine and a lot of bureaucracy for a lack of a better term. I had to talk to certain people in a certain order to get an answer for things, which could be frustrating at times. Now, it’s just Slade, Sean, and I working together to build something really awesome. There’s not a ton of limits, so that’s definitely the biggest difference for sure. There’s that freedom to get creative, build, and create something cool and impactful for the industry. I learned a lot from Stony Brook University. Naturally, there’s a lot that went into administrative work and networking of course. One of my biggest responsibilities as COO in Division One is to work with current universities in our conference as well as procure new members. I also make sure I am visible and available for anyone who wants to talk about Division One. That’s definitely one of the similarities, just the amount of networking required as well as a lot of the administrative work. Admin work is admin work. It’ll always be the same. I’m happy to still be able to work with the directors.

Caroline: What do you see for the future of Division One? Kevin: That’s a good question. I see Division One as that connector to bring together collegiate sports. We’re not here to replace anyone. We’re trying to bring everyone together and make the industry a little bit less fragmented. In doing so, I think there’s a future for Division One to really bring a lot of visibility to esports and to all the universities that are supporting esports on massive levels. There are lots of examples of big universities who are getting their name out there because of what they’re investing into esports. There are well-known D2 institutions who are making massive investments, and they need to get that same opportunity for visibility. I think Division One could be that opportunity for everybody regardless of league, or conference, etc.

Caroline: How do you see collegiate esports as a bridge to professional esports? Kevin: That’s a question I’ve been asked in interviews since I was in college competing myself. I think esports in general within the US will eventually take the turn that we see in traditional sports like football. You have Ewe, elementary, middle school, high school, college, pro, and I would love a world where that becomes the norm for esports. I understand you can have a 16-year-old esports player who plays in tier 2 and gets picked up by a tier 1 team, but I know that many of the pro teams that I have spoken to love being able to work with that type of potential raw talent but aren’t necessarily fond of having to reign them in and teach them how to be on a team. Collegiate players know how to be on teams. We could talk about Winthrop’s Denathor, who is now with Dignitas. We can talk about Chloric from Maryville playing over at Natus Vincere. These players are going out of collegiate into pro play and doing very well. It has a huge benefit for a pro team to pick up collegiate players who have gone through it, know what a team is like, and have that heart and talent. It works out in everybody’s favor.

With Kevin Craig as Division One’s new Chief Operating Officer, things are being worked on behind the scenes to continue to improve Division One as a collegiate esports hub. Keep an eye on Division One’s socials as Fall arrives for more premier collegiate competitions.