The development of the eSports club has been a long, careful process, full of many changes and new, successful ideas and developments.
“Prior to COVID, we tried to get eSports together, but we had a few technical issues,” Audio Visual Teacher Glenn Rankin said. “After COVID, we got some people involved, as well as some students that wanted it to happen towards the end of last year. Students were really the ones that got the process moving.”
ESports has experienced a handful of challenges during its early developmental stages, the biggest being figuring out where the club can gather for events, as they did not have a room during their initial development.
“We didn’t have a room,” Rankin said. “But, when a teacher moved over to freshman campus, Mrs. Siegel and I grabbed her room. We planned on making it a podcast room, but then I thought that we could put the eSports team there too, so through the help of a number of people we got some furniture and we got the computers set up.”
Despite these difficulties, Rankin helped to keep the club organised and efficient, reminding students of meetings and providing them with updates about the progress within the club.
“Rankin did a lot, he reminded people when their games were about to start, he got the room and the computers ready, and he would always troubleshoot with us if we had any problems,” senior Michaela Gutermuth said.
The club has had an exceptional amount of help from not only Rankin and other teachers, but technicians that work for the school.
“One of our higher level techs, the person who’s in charge of the network, went to a conference and found out how to get around some of the technical issues we were having,” Rankin said. “Tyler Cox, our technician, has really bent over backwards to make this club happen.”
From finding technology that works, to figuring out the games that students are enthusiastic to play, eSports is on a hopeful track, beginning to flourish into a successful club.
“Whenever you really try at something and you start to win and do good at it, it motivates you to do more and that makes everyone more driven as a team,” senior Landon Castor said.
