In the first decade of Rocket League esports, no North American player combined longevity, heartbreak, and eventual triumph quite like Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon. An American player born in 2001, he entered competition as a teenager, reached the very first Rocket League Championship Series World Championship in 2016, and eventually lifted the trophy for NRG Esports at the Season 8 finals in Madrid in 2019.
By the middle of the 2020s he had earned more than five hundred forty thousand dollars in prize money from well over one hundred seventy tournaments, placing him among the top fifteen Rocket League earners worldwide and one of the most consistently successful players to come out of North America. His story is inseparable from NRG’s rise in the game and from the early shape of the Rocket League Championship Series itself.
Early Life, Handle, And Entry Into RLCS
Public records list Garrett Gordon as a United States player born on February 6, 2001. Like many early competitors he came into Rocket League from casual play and ranked queues rather than a previous esports title. In a 2018 interview with Dignitas he described picking up the game quickly, becoming “extremely addicted,” and going years without willingly taking a day off from playing, which helps explain how a teenager from North America appeared so poised on the earliest RLCS stages.
He began competing seriously in 2015 on lineups such as Foremost, according to that same interview, and soon qualified for top tier tournaments in North America. Liquipedia’s overview notes that he reached the first RLCS Season 1 North American competition as part of VexX Gaming. By the time league play began he, his longtime teammate Turtle, and Moses rebranded as Exodus and pushed all the way to the Season 1 World Championship in Los Angeles, finishing in the top six after a lower bracket loss to FlipSid3 Tactics.
For a sixteen year old player, those first months created both expectation and pressure. GarrettG had already proven he could survive on the world stage. The question was whether he could turn that presence into championships.
Exodus, Orbit, And A Rising Star In North America
The Exodus core remained one of the defining North American teams through 2016. The roster battled through RLCS Season 2 qualifiers and tournaments while the scene itself grew around them. Late in that year, GarrettG moved under the Orbit eSports banner, as the Swedish organization briefly fielded an American Rocket League lineup.
Results across those early seasons did not yet bring a world title. They did, however, establish a reputation. Interviews from the period describe him as an aggressive offensive player, the one who would surge forward for a double tap or a booming clear while relying on faith in his teammates behind him. As other young stars emerged, GarrettG’s name remained near the top of every regional conversation. The biggest change in his career came when NRG Esports decided to build their long term Rocket League identity around him.
Joining NRG And The Long Road Through Heartbreak
GarrettG signed with NRG in January 2017, beginning one of the longest continuous player and organization pairings in Rocket League history. Over the next several seasons he played alongside Jacob “Jacob” McDowell, Fireburner, and later Justin “jstn” Morales, with Sizz joining as coach. Those lineups regularly topped North American league tables and qualified for every RLCS World Championship.
The relationship between player and organization was as much emotional as contractual. In the 2018 Dignitas interview, GarrettG praised NRG for investing in Rocket League and treating him well, then admitted that missing expectations at Season 4 Worlds and finishing last left him in the lowest state of his life as a competitor. He said he learned to treat those failures as motivation, channeling the disappointment into a deeper work ethic.
Season 5 brought the defining heartbreak of his early career. NRG reached the grand finals in London, only to fall to Team Dignitas in a dramatic seven game series that has since become one of the most replayed RLCS sets. The official RLCS results list Dignitas as champions and NRG as runners up, and GarrettG later called that run both the best and worst moment of his life because of how close it came to fulfilling his long held dream of lifting the trophy.
By the time Season 6 and Season 7 passed without a world title, his personal narrative had shifted. He was no longer just a young phenom. He was the veteran star that fans watched suffer through repeated near misses.
Season 8 World Champion And The End Of The Original RLCS Era
The breakthrough finally came at the RLCS Season 8 World Championship in Madrid in December 2019. NRG, now led by the trio of GarrettG, jstn, and three time defending world champion Turbopolsa, advanced through the bracket and met Renault Vitality in the grand final. Official coverage from Psyonix and contemporary reporting record NRG winning the series and the two hundred thousand dollar first place prize, with the title sealed by jstn’s overtime goal in game seven after a demolition from Turbopolsa cleared the net.
For GarrettG, the moment carried even more weight. The Season 8 Liquipedia page notes that he was the only player to have attended every single RLCS World Championship up to that point, making the Madrid victory the culmination of four years of uninterrupted world level appearances. Community compiled statistics later highlighted just how much he had played, crediting him with more than a thousand RLCS regional games and over one hundred matches at World Championships by the early 2020s.
The championship also marked the symbolic end of the original, season based RLCS format. When the circuit shifted to longer splits and majors, GarrettG transitioned with it, still anchoring NRG as new contenders emerged.
Veteran Of The Open Circuit And NA Standard Bearer
Across RLCS X and the 2021–22 circuit, NRG remained one of the most visible North American organizations. The official RLCS results list The General NRG as the runner up at the 2021–22 Fall Major in Stockholm, where Team BDS won a double best of seven final, and show the team as a constant presence at majors and the World Championship.
During this period, prize money totals continued to climb. EsportsEarnings tracks GarrettG with more than five hundred forty nine thousand dollars in career winnings from one hundred seventy plus tournaments, which places him among the highest paid Rocket League professionals in history and solidly within the top cluster of American players.
Even as mechanical prodigies from newer regions raised the overall ceiling of play, NRG regularly built around GarrettG’s experience and decision making. Interviews and broadcast segments from these years often pointed out how he balanced offensive pressure with back line stability, making him the player trusted to stop a counterattack or to lead a key passing play when the field opened up.
From Franchise Star To Co Owner And Content Creator
After nearly eight full years with NRG’s Rocket League roster, GarrettG’s role began to change. EsportsEarnings now describes him as a content creator and former player. Liquipedia’s NRG page lists him as a co owner and content creator for the organization from November 22, 2024, a shift that formalized his importance to NRG’s brand even as younger players stepped into starting roles.
His move toward content creation did not mean a complete exit from competition. EsportsEarnings records small but ongoing prize winnings in the mid 2020s, suggesting occasional appearances in tournaments even as his primary focus turned to streaming and on camera work. According to Twitch analytics, his channel has drawn an all time peak of over sixteen thousand concurrent viewers and still averages hundreds of viewers per broadcast, keeping him visible to a new generation of Rocket League fans who may know him first as a streamer rather than as the player who endured the early RLCS heartbreaks.
In this hybrid role as former pro, co owner, and creator, GarrettG has become part of NRG’s institutional memory. He can speak on broadcasts and in content pieces about both the Exodus days and RLCS majors played in arenas around the world, something few other figures in the scene can match.
Esports Legacy Profile: Assessing GarrettG’s Place In Rocket League History
There is ongoing debate in community spaces about where to rank GarrettG among Rocket League’s all time greats. Some fans argue that his long run of world championship appearances and his Season 8 title secure a place near the very top of any legacy list, while others point to players with multiple world championships or more recent major wins.
The factual record that underlies those discussions is clear. He reached the first RLCS World Championship as a teenager in 2016, then returned to every edition through Season 8. He anchored one of North America’s flagship organizations for almost eight years, helping NRG reach a Season 5 grand final, suffer multiple painful exits, and finally secure the Season 8 title in Madrid. He adapted to new formats and metas through RLCS X and the 2021–22 open circuit, remained a top earner in prize money, and then shifted into a leadership and content role rather than disappearing from the scene.
For the purposes of an Esports Legacy Profile, that combination of early adoption, world championship persistence, single but hard won world title, and continued contribution after stepping back from the starting roster gives Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon a unique footprint in Rocket League history. He stands as one of the defining North American players of the game’s first decade, the competitor whose long pursuit of a trophy mirrored the growth of the RLCS itself from a small experimental league to a global circuit.