“Smoothie builds work ethic. Andy uses it”: What it takes to build a career after sports

When the stage lights go out, what’s left?

For retired sports professionals, that question will be hard to avoid. The old myth — that a few solid seasons, a visible handle, and a place in the ecosystem can naturally lead to a comfortable second act — looks less reliable than ever. Salaries have cooled.

Group budgets have been strengthened. Competitive jobs, from training to broadcasting to content, still exist, but they are smaller, more competitive, and often less stable as the jobs they leave behind.

That makes the trite stories all the more compelling: a former professional and sales analyst, a former card player by trade, a longtime LCS veteran selling luxury homes in Beverly Hills. This is not news about staying in another name in games. They’re about to leave it, and about the strange challenge of translating the life built within sports into a world that often doesn’t understand it.

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo you are well aware of that translation problem. After ten years League of Legends as an actor and broadcast analyst, he entered an industry with little linguistic overlap.

“I sell to companies that sell first aid supplies and medical equipment,” he said. The move came quickly. “Coming back to Canada from the US, it was a great opportunity on short notice to sell solar.”

On paper, it may seem like a sharp break. In practice, basic skills are not common.

“Trusting the process and the grind is very important in sales,” says Crumbz. “Also, your ability to work with your team in different departments is critical to success.”

Words can describe an esports team that reviews the wrongdoers after a loss, except now the stakes are assignments, clients, and various connections instead of preparation games and stage.

His point gets to one of the central tensions of post-sports life. The benefits of competitive gaming are real: discipline, working under pressure, pattern recognition, etc. But in outdoor esports, that power means nothing.

“You absolutely have to learn how to put the esports experience into the right experience,” Rengifo said. “Not many people in the ‘real world’ know or care about sports. It’s your job to teach them why it’s important.”

That may be the hardest part of all. Retiring from esports isn’t just a career change. It is an act of translation.

Andy “Smoothie” Ta he spent 11 years competing at the top of the North American League of Legends, appearing in two World Championships and reaching the finals of the top leagues (and TSM). In 2024, he retired and got his real estate license.

The first months after that change were disturbing.

“The first few months after I retired, I was really lost,” he said. “I had spent over ten years building a name for myself that I was Smoothie. My schedule, my confidence, my social circle, everything was wrapped up in that name.”

That’s a common problem in traditional sports, too, but esports can exacerbate it.

Pro players often come in at a young age, live within tightly controlled routines, and spend their formative years becoming well-known for their brand. When that structure disappears, so does the ready-made identity. Smoothie said he deliberately avoided the most obvious next steps.

“I rejected the obvious methods, coaching, broadcasting, content, because none of them felt like I was betting,” he said. “They feel like they’re living in the same room with the lights off.”

Instead, he chose a field that scared him.

“I moved to luxury apartments in Beverly Hills because it scared me,” he said. “I didn’t know anything, I had to start completely from scratch, and the learning curve was brutal.”

The results came quickly: a large volume of sales, a rookie award, and proof that competitive practices can live without a server.

“Smoothie builds work ethic,” he said. “Andy uses it.”

Smoothie is very critical of what outsiders find wrong about professional gaming. The stereotype is that esports only produces small, game-specific skills, as if the age of elite competition reaches beyond fast hands. His experience suggests otherwise.

“The most important skills I took with me when I transitioned into real estate were pattern recognition, teamwork and communication,” she said. “One of my coaches told me at the beginning of my career to aim to improve 1% every day. I have never stopped using that.”

There is also the irony of how valuable an old job can be when it is finished. Smoothie said clients are often interested in the lifestyle they come from: the training programs, the stress, the experience of playing on the world stage. In sports, that CV can sound familiar among peers.

Without it, it can be a differentiator – a conversation starter, a symbol of unusual instruction, a story that people remember.