Esports will come to all nine OPS high schools next semester. Science teacher Mary Morris will be coaching the Bears esports teams. 

Morris is recruiting for the sport by putting up QR codes around the school and through emails, announcing it through the daily announcements and PDFs shown during advisement.  

Tryouts for the teams will start in January after winter break. Players of all levels are encouraged to try out even if they have no prior experience.  

“I would take both,” Morris said. I think it’ll be really beneficial to have those kids learn side by side with kids who are trying to learn about the game,”  

Only four games are approved by the school board for teams to play and they are Rocket League, League of Legends, Hearthstone and Overwatch 2.  

Each of the games can have teams of three, four, or five depending on the game. The teams will practice and compete in the CAD lab in room 127. 

Like all other sports, if a student’s grades don’t meet the minimum requirement to participate then they will not be able to compete until their grades are raised.  

Tournaments will be held at the school where they can play in the lab. There may also be opportunities for qualifying teams to compete in larger tournaments.   

A perk for some team members is an all-access pass to characters and cards on the person’s own personal game account, meaning it can be used outside of team practices or tournaments for their own enjoyment. 

“Yeah, I’m not really concerned about enrollment.,” Coach Morris said. “There’s a stat that PlayVS gave us just the other day, that 60% of Bryan students that do enroll for esports have never been in the sport before or they’ve never been in activity or a club before. So, it’s definitely one of those activities that is really going to widen the chances for a lot of opportunities .”