Lumen Vera enters his third season as the head coach of the Loyola Esports program in the 2024-25 season. In the 2023-24 season, Vera led the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team to the Sun Conference Championship Finals in its first season competing in the league. In the 2024-25 season, Vera earned the Wolf Pack its first Sun Conference Championship in its second season in the league. In 2024, Vera also guided Loyola to an undefeated season in Overwatch 2, winning a conference championship in NACE competition.
Under Vera's coaching, Makari Jackson and Malachi Lee earned All-Conference honors in Sun Conference Super Smash Bros. play. The Esports program has competed in Call of Duty Modern Warfare III, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Overwatch, Overwatch 2, and Fortnite since the 2022-23 season. In its first-ever Fortnite competition in the 2024-25 season in the Playfly Open Qualifier, Loyola finished seventh among 49 teams.The team has reached the NACE postseason in each video game with Call of Duty reaching the playoffs in its inaugural year in 2023-24.
Vera was announced as the first-ever head coach of the Loyola Esports program in August 2022. Loyola became the fourth collegiate esports program in the state of Louisiana when it announced the addition of the program. The team competes against 190 other collegiate teams across the country, joining the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE), the only governing body for varsity college programs in North America.
Vera comes to Loyola with a wide range of esports experience, serving as CEO of Crescent Esports since 2016 while gaining experience as a head coach and tournament director for other Esports entities. Vera was the head coach for Predator Esports from 2017-2018, tournament director for CoLiveStreaming Esports that same year, then in 2018-2019, he worked as an AV Manager for Ladera Sports Center in Ladera Ranch, California.
As CEO of Crescent Esports, not only did Vera recruit and coach professional players, he developed marketing strategies for social media, merchandise, and general sales, as well as managed a diverse staff, sponsors, social media, players and content creators, and website. At Predator Esports, Vera led and created coaching strategies and training exercises for players in Overwatch, and as a tournament director for CoLiveStreaming, he led the charge in hosting online esports tournaments while managing sponsorships, employees and vendors to create the best tournament experience.
The Loyola esports team has a gaming facility built inside the Danna Center on campus to house the program, and some of the video games the team competes in are Overwatch 2, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. The team began competition in fall 2022.
