ESports endures, grows throughout pandemic
At a time during the pandemic when there were no sports, there was one sport that was able to endure and continue because of its unique nature. When schools closed in the spring, eSports was able to continue thanks to the remote capabilities of online gaming.
“At the end of the year last year, when we closed down because of coronavirus, we had some kids who had gaming PCs set up at home so they were able to compete from there, which was nice,” New Knoxville eSports Coach Cory Canan said. “That’s something that makes eSports unique because you can’t play basketball or baseball from home but as long as you have a computer and internet, you can play eSports.”
And it’s not just New Knoxville that has enjoyed the remote benefits of eSports.
“Because we were so prepared for the fall semester, comparatively, I even had several students quarantined during the fall season, but they were able to compete from home because they had the head up to know to prepare and to get their internet connections set up and get everything working that way,” said St. Marys eSports Coach John Hartman.
But COVID has still made an impact on eSports, as it has in many other parts of people’s lives. The spring seasons were cut short, despite the adaptations that were able to be made, because tournaments that were scheduled to be held in the Tiffin eSports Arena had to be canceled to limit travel and potential exposure of students to the virus.
New Knoxville was able to have a team of three qualify to play in a Rocket League tournament sponsored by the Texas Scholastic eSports Federation, competing with teams from all over the United States.
“Basically we were making sure that kids still got to play, even though they couldn’t be at school,” said Canan.
In St. Marys, Hartman spent the off time getting his engineering classroom prepared to allow more room to spread students out for eSports.
“I’ve got a completely different setup this year than last year,” he said. “I
had my students in rows previously so they were all sitting right next to each other and obviously I wanted to get rid of that for the sake of COVID so now I’ve got them in groups. The only person that they are within six feet of is the student immediately next to them, everyone else is at least six feet away.”
Despite the addition of extra distance, Hartman said the students all regularly communicate through headsets and their communication is not affected.
Canan also made a few changes to the way New Knoxville operates it’s eSports practices by requiring masks if more than one student is at a table.
“The tables the computers are on are six feet long so as long as there is no one else at that table, they’re socially distant,” he said. “We just didn’t have the room to add any more space. We’re focused on wearing masks and keeping everything sanitized once we’re done for the day.”
Both schools are looking forward to the upcoming spring eSports season with both reporting an increase in students interested in eSports. St. Marys has 24 signed up for the spring season and New Knoxville is expecting roughly the same with about 30 who have shown interest so far.
An advantage for a smaller school, such as New Knoxville, is that since eSports is not focused on the competitor’s physical ability, students as young as 13 are able to compete on the same team as older kids.
“All the games have different ways of competing but they’re all skill-based challenges,” Hartman explained. “It’s all about the fine motor skills and strategy to know what the opponents going to do and to out strategize them. It’s very similar to a sport except it focuses more on fine motor skills less on the gross motor skills. It’s all about precision, accuracy, strategy and tactics, knowing where your opponents are going to be.”
It also allows for mixed teams of boys and girls.
“There’s such a stigma that boys play video games because of the amount of fighting games and shooting in a lot of the games and things like that aren’t always as fun to girls,” Canan said. “But we have a girl who is a senior this year and she’s easily one of my best Overwatch players and just does an outstanding job. I think a lot of kids — especially the younger kids — look to her as an example of how to be a really excellent Overwatch player and I cannot be more happy with that.
“She does an awesome job.” Seeing those interactions on a daily basis, played out between students of all ages and genders, is the greatest reward for the coaches, despite the challenges of a global pandemic.
“I mean the kids have a lot of fun and it’s an honor to coach them,” Hartman said. “They work hard and it’s really fun to see kids take something they enjoy doing and just refine it and do it so well.”