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Video games have come a long way since dropping a quarter gave you three tries to eat all the dots in the maze, while avoiding the ghosts that were chasing you, or jetting around a black and white screen blasting asteriods.

Today’s video games are mainstream, and Clark Country R-1 High School has recently added E-sports to their list of activities.  

What are E-Sports? 

 “E-Sports is an organized video game competition. We usually play team-based games that require teamwork, coordination, and communication in addition to individual skill in the game in order to be successful. We have two games that we play in the fall – Overwatch and Rocket League. In the winter/spring term we play League of Legends and Super Smash Bros.,”said CCR-1 High School teacher, who serves as one of the E-Sports coaches and sponsors.  Lance Smith joins Taylor as coach and sponsor.  Smith coaches Rocket League, and Taylor coaches Overwatch.

According to Wikipedia, “Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Described as a “hero shooter”, Overwatch assigns players into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a roster of over 30 characters, known as “heroes”, each with a unique style of play that is divided into three general roles that fit their purpose. Players on a team work together to secure and defend control points on a map or escort a payload across the map in a limited amount of time.”

Rocket League is described Wikipedia as “soccer, but with rocket-powered cars, Rocket League has up to eight players assigned to each of the two teams, using rocket-powered vehicles to hit a ball into their opponent’s goal and score points over the course of a match.”

“This is a new organization and group for the school. We’ve been working hard to get up and running. We hope to be able to stream some of our matches at some point in the future with students running commentary over the match. We always appreciate the community’s interest and support in the programs that we pursue in school,” said Taylor.

The equipment that is used to play these games have been provided by the school.  

“The school updates our computers through a 50/50 grant for vocational programs. We were able to take advantage of this grant in order to get computers that had the hardware capable of running the games at a rate that keeps our team competitive,” Taylor added.  Students do not have to pay anything for them to play on an E-Sports team

Team Captains for these games are: Carter Plenge-Overwatch Varsity Captain; Jacob Wenger- Rocket League Varsity Captain; Joseph Wenger-Overwatch Varsity Captain, Rocket League Varsity Captain; Katherine Marshall-Rocket League JV Captain; Trenton Hardy-Overwatch JV Captain; and Xavier Wenger-Rocket League JV Captain.

“Students who are interested in E-Sports are all encouraged to participate, but they must meet the school’s requirements for participation in extracurricular activities and sports”, said Taylor.

When looking at how many students have signed up for E-Sports this year, Taylor Stated, “We have 21 students signed up for E-Sports at this time.   Both teams hold practice once a week and have matches once a week”, said Taylor.

With this sport, there is no travel, Taylor said, “The game and the competitions are online, so there is no travel involved with E-Sports.”

 Taylor offered this advice for anyone that would like to join the E-Sports team next year:

“We are happy to include any student who wants to participate in E-Sports. If students want to participate they should get started playing the games and make sure that they keep their grades up and do well in school so that they are eligible for participation.”