Elijah Clayton, a 21-year-old who grew up in Los Angeles, was remembered Sunday as someone who was very good at football _ both on the field and online.
In fact, in his short life, Clayton was able to make a career out of playing the Madden NFL video game at high-level tournaments.
He was at one such tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sunday when he was shot by David Katz, a fellow gamer who had been eliminated from the competition, authorities said.
In a video that was livestreamed by the network Twitch, Clayton can be seen playing with a smile on his face. A red laser dot appears on Clayton's sweater. He scores a touchdown. Then the video feed switches to a kickoff return _ and 11 gunshots can be heard.
"Those were his last actions: A touchdown and a smile," said Damon Kirk, one of Clayton's gaming friends. "Then the guy started shooting."
Clayton died of his wounds, as did another competitor. Katz then killed himself, according to witnesses.
It only took a few years for Clayton _ better known by the handle Trueboy _ to make himself known to fans of the Madden NFL game.
"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 played football at Chaminade College Preparatory in the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 2012 before transferring to Calabasas High School in 2013.
Jojo McIntosh played football with Clayton at Chaminade. "He was always good at games and he felt like he could go somewhere with it," McIntosh said of his former teammate. "I know he was at the top of what he was doing."
Days before flying to Jacksonville, Clayton indicated in a tweet that he was unsure whether he would attend this year's Madden NFL competition. But he had a change of heart.
The competition seemed to have been going well. On Saturday, he tweeted: "Won every game by max no one crossed the 50 or scored a point. Waiting for singles for tomorrow."
Clayton was a creative Madden player who made swift progress, Kirk said. He placed second at a recent Madden tournament called Muthead, earning a share of the $20,000 prize.
"He really was the best Madden player this year," Kirk said. "He probably would have walked away with a half a million dollars."
For some fans, it didn't take much for Clayton to make an impression on them.
Downey said it was a single message on Twitter that left him with a sense of Clayton's genuine personality. After Downey, who is relatively new to the gaming world, won prizes for playing in the NBA 2K League, Clayton left a simple congratulatory message that included the words "never change."
"He was one of the first people to reach out to me," said Downey, whose gaming handle is One Wild Walnut. He took time out of his life to do that."
Kirk described Clayton as "super funny, super cool, always joking, always laughing.... He was just a carefree person."
The Twitter account for Calabasas High School's football program posted a statement following reports that Clayton was one of the victims:
"Our hearts are broken as we learned that former Calabasas Football player @True_818 (Elijah Clayton) was senselessly murdered today. ... We send our love, condolences and deepest sense of sorrow to Elijah's family and friends."
Tom Fahy, principal of Chaminade College Preparatory, remembered Clayton as a respectful, mild-mannered young man.
"He was a dedicated student, doing his best in the classroom while being a great teammate to his football family," Fahy said in a statement.
Clayton kept in touch with his teammates after leaving high school, and they watched online as his gaming career took off.
Garret Scartace, one of his Chaminade teammates, said he spent much of Sunday refreshing his screen over and over again, hoping to learn that the news was not true.
"The hardest part for me is he was a young guy," Scartace said. "His family ... will never get to see him grow old, get his first house, get married, have kids. For that to be taken from him over a video game _ it leaves me speechless."
