The men killed during a shooting at a video gaming tournament were talented players – on the screen as well as on the field. Elijah…
The men killed during a shooting at a video gaming tournament were talented players – on the screen as well as on the field.
Elijah Clayton, 21, and Taylor Robertson, 27, were both football stars in high school, and later became successful pro-gamers.
They died Sunday after being shot by David Katz, a fellow gamer who had been eliminated from the competition at a Madden tournament in Jacksonville, authorities said. Katz then killed himself.
Clayton played football at Chaminade College Preparatory in Los Angeles before transferring to Calabasas High School in 2013, the Los Angeles Times reported .
“He was always good at games and he felt like he could go somewhere with it,” said Jojo McIntosh, who played football with Clayton. “I know he was at the top of what he was doing.”
After high school, Clayton – known by the handle “Trueboy” — was able to make a career out of playing the Madden NFL video game at high-level tournaments.
He placed second at a recent competition called Muthead – and earned a share of the $20,000 prize.
“If you knew the competitive Madden scene, you knew him,” said Dayne Downey, a fan of Clayton’s and an NBA 2K League player.
Clayton was “the best Madden player this year,” his gaming friend Damon Kirk said. “He probably would have walked away with a half a million dollars.”
The winner of the Madden Classic 2017 was Robertson, a husband and dad-of-one from West Virginia.
Robertson also played football in college – as a running back at James Monroe High School, Metro News reported. He graduated in 2009.
An avid gamer, Robertson – who went by the name “Spotmeplzz” – had played 18 games as part of the Madden community and won 72 percent of them. He died exactly three months shy of his 28th birthday.
”I looked up to him so much when I was little as did most boys in Peterstown,” Monroe County resident Andrew Evans wrote on Facebook. “He loved his family more than anything.”
