Playing video games could lead to scholarships

Courtesy of Jose Corona

Playing a death match game in “Valorant,” a popular first-person shooter game, senior Jose Corona warms up before playing a competitive five verses five match on Dec. 10. Corona plays against others on line regularly and has earned an Iron I ranking in the game, but is working on achieving Iron II.

Adriana Valadez Cue, Reporter

Esports has become a major category for upcoming college and high school students. As students who have a passion for gaming and are exceptionally good at it do not get all the opportunities, they could have access to as it is not seen for major importance. With that it is causing the industry to grow more with each day aa more people join it.
“To have the opportunity to get scholarships for it you need to be a high-ranking player who shows growth and potential,” Bellevue University Esports coach Cory Cool said.
Schools who do offer esports are: Bellevue University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Iowa Central Community College, Wayne State, Midland University as well as many other schools.
The esports program works exactly like most other collegiate settings within the athletic department, but they don’t need to go through a rigorous physical fitness session like other physical sports need to. The players need to go through ranking to see where their skills are placed at and make sure they can compete in a tournament.
The main purpose of the esports program is to grant students who have a passion and talent for serious gaming an opportunity to secure a four year college degree, while supporting it and competing within it. It mainly leads into games as Valorant, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), Rocket League, and Fortnite.

Warming up, University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s esports team prepares for their Valorant tournament game against el YeeT, another e-sports team, at the Mid America Gaming Expo on Nov. 21. UNL won the tournament overall beating eL Yeet 13-6 in the final match. (Justin Diep)

As for scholarships, players need a way to be able to be discovered or found in some way for colleges to see where the players rank and compete in games and competitions. The website used where colleges can find players is berecruited.com. It allows for players to make a profile to show where they rank and all the games they play for colleges to find them.
“I’ve been playing competitive games for over six to seven years with my friends and when an email went out about teams wanted for the competition we went for it,” Trent Kulsk Midland esports team player said.
Trent Kulsk also said, “It was very hard to try and find one as my high school did not offer anything for esports so we emailed every college that did offer them to see what offers we may be able to get as competitive players.”

Players from Midland University competed in a free local tournament at the Mid America Gaming Expo where they played with friends and other teammates against various teams like Wayne State and UNL.
Many schools do not offer it as much because it is not a physical sport. The schools who do offer it have it also in athletics so they can be within an athletics program.
The esports industry has been gaining a bigger popularity as communities like FaZe, a popular esports organization, is going to become a publicly traded company. That leads to sites like Twitch and YouTube where many creators have a platform where they carry on doing esports for money prizes or charities.