Jonas “daemondragoon” Wollman has been with OU ECCI for a long time, and he’s seen some incredible changes during his time at OU. Wollman, a computer engineering major, has used his time at OU ECCI to make meaningful connections and explore his passions outside of the classroom.
Wollman started his journey with OU ECCI during his sophomore year, when he joined the “Counter-Strike” team after hearing about it from one of his friends.
“I played with them for about a semester and a half,” Wollman said. “I was always at the bottom of the leaderboard, but it was always fun to be with them.”
Though Wollman realized the competitive scene wasn’t for him, there were other options for him to continue working with ECCI. He chose the next best thing: the production team.
“Every game that we played, we never streamed because no one cared about our team,” Wollman said. “I decided I’m going to be doing the production, so I can still help out. From then, it’s been making sure that everything gets seen every chance that I can.”
Wollman helped build up the production team and get the “Counter-Strike” team more visibility, which he has excelled at. Wollman enjoys casting for “Counter-Strike,” which means he’s the person in front of the camera who does play-by-play commentary.
“Counter-Strike” isn’t Wollman’s only speciality, however. He’s helped with production for titles such as “Marvel Rivals” and “Overwatch,” among others. He attributes that experience to the Production Coordinator, Sam Graziano.
“Sam does a really good job of trying to make it to where everybody’s pretty well-rounded to work with every game,” Wollman said.
While Wollman is proficient in all areas of production, casting is his favorite thing to do.
“I love to hear myself talk,” Wollman said. “There’s a degree of public speaking that comes with [casting]. That is fun to me because I don’t get to do that in anything else I do.”
Before Graziano’s era of production work, streaming was a much more unstructured area. Wollman used to produce streams with his older sister, who has since graduated from OU. They were called the “Wonder Twins” by Graziano because his sister would produce the streams while Wollman would cast and observe “Counter-Strike” games.
While Wollman has a history with ECCI, he’s done far more than being a production member. He was born in Iowa but moved to Oklahoma as a baby. He went through public school in Moore and graduated from Moore High School in 2022.
“OU was always the option for me, especially because my sister was older than me by three years when she went to OU,” Wollman said. “I didn’t know about esports, but I did know about their engineering program.”
Once Wollman joined ECCI, he made efforts to connect with his high school, which has an esports team. He expressed an interest in making the connection between OU ECCI and Moore High School because of the opportunities it would bring to high schoolers to continue doing esports at a collegiate level.
When looking back at his studies, he’s glad he chose a major like engineering, which lets him be more hands-on and work more than other majors.
“What I’m doing now, where I’m working in labs and building things, is just so fun,” Wollman said. “I’m glad I’ve got a job lined up.”
After graduating, Wollman is going to be a hardware and software engineer for Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City. He will be helping with weapons manufacturing and testing. He’d considered going to Texas for computer science work, but it was a bit too competitive for him.
Wollman is going to continue gaming in his life after college. He doesn’t see it as something he would ever grow out of or drop.
“It’s an escape,” Wollman said. “And that’s how it is for a lot of people. It’s stuck by me, so I keep sticking by it.”
During Wollman’s time in college, he has learned valuable lessons about friendship, growth, and change.
“When I first started at OU, I thought that I was just going to stick with my same group of people and be with that forever,” Wollman said. “But people leave and change. I’ve got four people I met in college who are my all-time favorite people now.”
Wollman has met many people thanks to OU ECCI, and without it, he wouldn’t have had the catalyst that pushed him out there.
“If people come to college and think that they’re going to be able to fly by, you can do it. It’s going to suck, but you should put yourself out there anyway.”
