BIGGSVILLE, Illinois – On Monday afternoons, a new club at West Central High School is drawing more than a dozen students to the school library, students with a love for gaming.
The E-Sports club started just this school year, when Logan Brown began teaching math at the high school.
“During my interview process here, they asked me what I would be interested in starting up, as far as clubs and activities went. E-sports was one of them, because I know it’s a rising field, especially because different colleges are starting to offer scholarships for that,” the math teacher and volunteer e-sports coach said.
It took a few weeks to get the equipment sorted out, students would be playing mostly on existing library computers. "What’s really cool about League of Legends, it’s free to play. The only thing you need to make sure is your computer is able to run it," Brown explained.
With a student population of 242, turnout at the first meeting was exciting: 20 students showed up.
Wesley Stuart, a senior, could hardly wait for the club to begin. He had never played the game before.
"A lot of us this is our fist time even playing the game, it’s a learning curve," he said.
For Stuart, video-gaming is just one of many extracurricular activities. The 18-year old is also in the school play, a band member, plays football and runs track.
And he doesn't plan on winning the multimillion dollar cash prizes e-sports can offer.
"I'm going to go to airforce academy, I just got accepted last Friday. I want to become a pilot in the airforce."
Ezekeil Dabbs sat nearby, coaching fellow players. "We don’t have a whole lot of opportunities to group together around here. Every school has sports and stuff, but there’s a lot of kids I know that don’t get an opportunity like this," he said of the club. "I didn’t know half these people play games. It just helps us connect together."
Eyes fixated on the screen, his fingers clicking rapidly as he moved his character around, Stuart added that the game teaches valuable skills he thinks he will use in his chosen career.
"Quick thinking, and working under pressure could apply to being a pilot in the future. Working together is an important thing, especially as an officer in the military, you need to be able to work together," he enumerated as he lobbed instructions to his team mates about his next moves. "And communication, especially being able to communicate under stress. That’s important."
"Just as a game of basketball can teach you to communicate by talking with your teammates and talking together, e-sports does the same thing," Stuart said.
Brown who volunteers his time as coach, said he hoped the club offers opportunties to students outside of traditional sports activities.
"The other cool thing about e-sports is, yes, it's not as physically intensive, but it's mentally intensive. There is a lot of strategy, there's a lot going on. You are playing but you have to keep track of where nine other players are at the same time as you. So there's a lot of skill, a lot of strategy, a lot of discussion."
The math teacher said a bit of math comes into play too, from basic addition and subtraction to calculating probability: "A lot of students in their minds, while they’re playing, will be thinking, ‘What are the odds of this happening, “ and they need to be constantly thinking “What if” and what’s going on currently."
Brown and his students hope that with practice, playing against bots and against other players online from around the country for now, the team will be able to compete against other schools and at Carl Sandburg College in the spring. Sandburg became the first community college in Illinois to offer e-sports as an intercollegiate sport last fall.
"I’m hoping that by starting e-sports here, that a lot of the other schools around take note and see this as an opportunity to get students involved. Especially with colleges offering scholarships, it’s a great opportunity to get students involved in something that can potentially help them fund an education," he said.