Playing video games for hours at a time may be seen as a waste by some, or merely leisure by others, but for Arkawin Khwanthongyim, it could be a typical work day.
“I was addicted to the game and now it’s crazy, getting college (recognition) and being on a team,” Khwanthongyim said.
There are 8,600 high schools with esports teams around the country, according to the National Education Association, and the trend is gaining steam in Eastern Connecticut.
Khwanthongyim is one of the esports players for Putnam Science Academy. The school’s esports team has two senior players that have gotten college attention.
Khwanthongyim, who plays the game Valorant, a team-based first-person shooter, is one. Leonardo Vaca, who plays the game Rocket League, which is like soccer with cars, is the other.
“We were surprised as well,” said Ibo Rivera, a marketing assistant for Putnam Science.
Khwanthongyim is seeing interest from Limestone College, Newberry College of South Carolina and the University of Mississippi, according to the Putnam Science Academy esports Twitter. Some of the schools reaching out to Vaca include Ottawa University, Rochester University and Northwestern University.
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Kwanthongyim said in his home country of Thailand, there isn’t a way to be playing video games like he does, and get into a good school.
“When my family says ‘you’re not going to get anywhere good,’ ‘stop playing video games, it’s not going to help you,’ and now I can prove it to my parents,” Kwanthongyim said. “Every time I call my mom, I’ll be like ‘yeah, I just got this offer.’”
Rivera pitched the idea of having an esports program at the school last February, as just another activity for teens at the school. Since getting the approval, Rivera said the team has been playing other schools through PlayVS, contracted by the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. While there are programs spread out throughout the state, the ones in Eastern Connecticut include Griswold High School and Woodstock Academy.
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Khwanthongyim got into the Putnam Science Academy’s esports program through his teacher, Aaron Jones, who is also the program’s head coach. Kwanthongyim asked about esports as a freshman, and kept asking from time to time, but when the program got running for his senior year, he said it was “my time to shine.”
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Rivera said Kwanthongyim caught the interest of colleges through grinding and getting his rank up, and playing showcase events on the weekend.
“This past month, he started getting a lot of offers,” Rivera said.
One of the schools that the Putnam Science Academy Twitter mentions has expressed interest in both Vaca and Khwanthongyim is Ball State University in Indiana.
Recently, Ball State had a famous alum, former late-night comic David Letterman, visit the school, with the Muncie Star Press reporting that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will be giving two $5,000 scholarships yearly, from the 2022-2023 to the 2025-2026 academic years for the program. Dan Marino, Ball State’s director of esports, said college esports are popular, but there isn’t a succinct answer for why schools are joining in, offering money, student life opportunities and more.
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“Right now, being able to generate the revenue a football team on campus might isn’t the goal,” Marino said. “The way I view esports, it’s between what athletics programs are able to do, and what a rec center or a swimming pool is able to do.”
In terms of getting players, Marino said, like with traditional sports, there is more demand for quality players than there is supply. While the University has done well with in-state recruiting, as a public university, Marino said they’re trying to expand their out-of-state and international population.
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“It helps to increase the quality of the student experience by getting to meet and compete with different people they might not have been able to meet before, while giving our teams a leg up on the competition,” Marino said, also noting that colleges and the professional esports scene vie for the same kinds of players.
Marino also said, as Ball State treats esports as a varsity sport, that they need students that understand the commitment, and having the high school esport experience helps. Players meet 12-15 hours per week for practice, film review, scrimmages, match days and strategy.
“It’s a part-time job, and finding people with experience, whether it’s being on a high school team or an amateur team in the past, goes a long way,” Marino said.
‘They’re calling us a success story.’ Esports at Griswold High School begins
Another Eastern Connecticut school with an esports team is Griswold High School. The school opened up The Nexus back in the fall, a classroom that is used for both tech classes and for developing an esports team. Teacher Jim Rand, one of the coaches for Griswold’s esports team, said they’re not at the level yet of attracting college attention, but they believe they’re getting there.
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Rand said the school is playing in a different league than Putnam Science Academy, the High School Esports League, a national esport league for high schools. Griswold started playing Rocket League only, to get the feel for how the system works. With three smaller teams of players, the best Griswold players had a .500 win record in the fall. For the spring season, the school will be playing five different games for the league, adding Valorant, Halo, Minecraft, and Chess.
“A number of kids that had wanted to do other things, in respect to different games, can branch out a little bit, and we attracted a few new students as well who wanted to come into some of the games they weren’t able to get into in the fall,” Rand said.
One of the Griswold esports members is Junior Calibe Lopez. He said he got into the program because he got an email from Rand, and was all for it early on. In terms of how things are going, Lopez said “as basically the captain of the team” for the five player Valorant team, he’s busy warming up the players and working on team strategies, but he could see the team making strides, and maybe even winning a tournament and getting scholarships for college.
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“We have some intelligent players; I see potential in all of them,” Lopez said. “They’re effective communicators, and they have good teamwork overall.”
Rand would also say things are going well, as he and coach Kyle Gunderman will be presenting to other members of the High School Esports League about how they got their program started quickly, “and they’re calling us a success story.”
Beyond the gamers themselves, Rand said the program is also supported by “The Stream Team,” which helps stream games on Twitch, Youtube and others, creates graphics for the team, and makes content for social media.
“It’s not just the gaming,” Rand said. “It’s a really intricate, complex system of many disciplines, many skills, and we’re looking to harness all of the talents of the students we have to make a great program here.”
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As for Khwanthongyim’s future, he looks to study languages in college, and he wants to keep going as a professional streamer, representing his country. With the rising popularity of esports, Kwanthongyim said other high schools in the area should consider adding esports.
“I think there’s a lot of people like me, good at video games, but they don’t have a lot of opportunities,” Kwanthongyim said. “So I want all these people to get the opportunity.”
