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There is a new sports team at Madison County Central High School, but you won’t find them practicing in a gym or field.
They don’t pass any balls either — at least not physical ones.
However, teamwork and strategy are still vital parts of the games they play; points are just scored with controllers or keyboards.
While video games are seen by many as a hobby or form of escapism, a lot of video games are highly competitive in nature. Esports – in which players face off across various genres of multiplayer games – have taken off in the last decade in a big way.
After the Kentucky High School Athletics Association adopted an Esports program, Madison Central teachers Chris Dyal and Nathaniel Lockard set up an Esports League at their school.
The pair created teams for games like Super Smash Bros., Madden NFL, Rocket League, and League of Legends. Next year, the teachers said the plan is add NBA 2K, Mario Kart, Splatoon 2, and Hearthstone.
According to Dyal, the idea to start an Esports team came from eager students.
“I’d had some students come to me over time and ask about it,” Dyal said. “One day, one of the other teachers told me that KHSAA does Esports. I instantly said to myself, ‘This is it; this is what I wanna do here.’ Then unfortunately, COVID made things take a little longer… Finally, this was the first year where I had time to pitch it to kids… We’ve been building on it since then.”
One student was on his way to tryout for the tennis team when he heard about tryouts for Madison Central’s League of Legends team.
“I was going to go to the tennis tryouts and I walked past Mr. Lockard’s room. He told me about League of Legends and how he was a side coach. I told him how I had interest in it, but kind of fell off. He told me to go join, so I walked down and joined them. There wasn’t a lot of people, so I felt needed,” Drayton Dydasco recalled.
Alex Ruf joined the Rocket League team under different circumstances.
“I told everybody that I played Rocket League and asked everyone if I could play with them. Then a friend of mine told me there was an Esports team.”
While he normally plays Rainbow Six: Siege, Ethan Wood’s passion for video games pushed him to join the school’s Madden NFL team.
“I saw the announcement on Google Classroom for the class page. When I saw Mr. Dyal was the coach I said ‘Yeah, this is something that I would definitely do,’ because I’ve been playing video games my entire life,” Wood said.
Dydasco, Wood, and Ruf are captains of their respective teams. While they all had different circumstances for joining, they all have a passion for video games. Coaches Dyal and Lockerd are also lifelong gamers, with Dyal noting that having an Esports team would have been unimaginable for him growing up.
“Growing up in a small county, it’s amazing having the ability to offer this to kids,” Dyal said.
Twenty-five students are active in the Esports program at Madison Central, with 35 registered for it in total. Pre-COVID, Wood and Dydasco were some of several students pushing to bring Esports to the school. Dydasco spoke about the privilege of having the team at the school.
“To have it now and be able to actually say to my parents, ‘Don’t bother me, I’m playing video games for school,’ is a really cool privilege to have,” Dydasco.
As captains of their teams, Wood, Ruf, and Dydasco agreed the games they compete against other schools in, are high pressure, but rewarding. The same rules that are in place for traditional sports exist for Esports. As trash talking or antagonizing other players can lead to points being deducted from the offending player’s team.
The teams even have practice sessions where they play from home.
The members of the program noted an Esports team brings a lot of good to the school — whether bringing together students who might feel alienated by other traditional sports — or other opportunities like college scholarships for gifted gamers.
“I think Esports is still a growing industry. It’s not as big as it can be,” Wood said. “It’s cool that we can be a part of this… Given the opportunity to play in high school for me – with just grades and school work I probably wouldn’t have the best time in college or be able to go to college. But this gives me a path in. So this is a really good opportunity for a lot of people.”
Madison Central’s Esports team regularly plays against teams from other states.
All five teams at the school also regularly play against teams across the state and are eligible for playoff games which take place at the University of Kentucky. The school is in the process of setting up streams where people can watch Madison Central’s teams play. Both student and coaches hope to set up a lab soon with setups for video game consoles and computers so the teams can play together in person.
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