Taking Video Games to the Next Level
Kailey White (8)
No more sitting in your living room on the couch or on the floor of your bedroom competing with your siblings while playing video games. Now, we sit around classrooms at SCHOOL and play video games! Welcome to E-Sports. E-Sports is a club that meets before or after school to play video games. Yes, you read that correctly; students sit in a room with a teacher and play video games! Then, get this, they compete against other schools. They go out and compete against other schools with the goal of making it to the championships.
E-Sports members play a variety of video games that are usually school friendly. They play games like “Smash Brothers” and “Rocket League.” Students can team up with each other to defeat their opponents, or they can choose to do one on one games. E-Sports is currently in middle schools and high Schools. The higher the grade level, the more competitive it gets. High schools’ E-Sports teams are more popular because they have a couple of years on middle schools. This is actually the first year Jordan Middle School has a team.
On December 10, 2022, Jordan E-Sports competed in the final four: Jordan vs Rawlinson and Strauss vs Luna. David Cavazos, Ian Alexander, Brandon Garcia, James Garza, Jahziel Lozoya, and Dominic Giannetti were the students that played for final matches. The team ended 4th place in the competition just missing the slot for the semi-finals.
Since this club is new to Jordan, I decided to sit in on a meeting, to get a better feel for the culture and environment. Students played school friendly fighting games and took turns on choosing those games. Whichever game was played, no one complained, everyone encouraged and offered techniques, and really just seemed to enjoy their time playing. They even gave me a chance and helped me complete a level I had never tried before. It was so much fun, I ended up joining the club.
If you love gaming or you’re looking for a friendly competition, come check us out. Practices are on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 7:50am – 8:35am. There are occasional afternoon meetings as we get closer to competition time.