In A League Of Their Own

JILLIAN WILLIAMS | FEBRUARY 1, 2021 | FEATURES

Depictions of sports in the media  are typically images of sweaty athletes participating in competitions side by side with other athletes. However, in the modern age of evolving technology, a new variety of sports is growing in popularity: esports. During the current coronavirus pandemic, a time when in-person sports are a potential health risk, esports has received a wave of new support, inspiring the esports club at Stanton College Preparatory School.

The Stanton Blue Devils esports team, which won the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) tournaments in its first year competing, is the first of its kind. Similar to traditional sports, the club held tryouts and meets regularly for practices. They play “League of Legends,” a battle royale game released in 2009 that requires skill and teamwork from its participants. Players compete in scrimmages against other teams and communicate in Discord, a communication platform for gamers, in order to improve their collaboration and in-game skills. The players are divided into an A-team and B-team, with five members on each and two substitutes. While there are more members of the club, these teams were formed based on the players’ gaming prowess and represent the club at esports competitions. Both teams are highly ranked as some of the top regionally. This can partly be credited to the expert composition of the teams.

Within the game, each member has a different role. Senior Tristen Campayne is responsible for drafting the composition of the teams based on these roles and the skill sets of the players. These arrangements, with the positions are also determined based on the characters they use in the game, each having different strengths and abilities. While some arrangements remain consistent, others are decided based on the strengths of the opponent.

“You want to draft what you are good at but you also want to deny the enemy team by banning what they are good at,” said Campayne. “[I decide the compositions] because I just spend my own time thinking about the game before and after we play.”

As the captain of the A-team and president of the club, senior Cody Zheng leads the team both in and outside of the game. He started playing “League of Legends” in fifth grade when the game was in the early stage of season three. Now, he considers himself a seasoned veteran as the game enters its tenth season. Zheng has aspirations to continue participating in esports during college.

“My plan right now for after high school is most likely to join University of Central Florida’s  A-team because their roster, the last time I checked, is pretty stacked,” said Zheng. “They’re probably one of the best Florida A-teams. There have been some small colleges that have tried to recruit me for their teams, but I wasn’t interested.”

For talented players like Zheng, participating in esports is a viable plan for the future. Similar to other sports, colleges scout esports players during competitions and offer scholarships. This is becoming more common as many colleges form esports teams, including UCF. The high school competition sponsor, PlayVS, also offers a scholarship for competition winners. Not every player aspires to continue esports in college, however, and the B-team includes players who participate more for fun.

The B-team captain, senior Cooper France, was chosen as the captain because he was the highest-ranking member outside of the A-team. As a captain, his responsibilities include scouting teams to practice against and deciding on strategies for matches.

“It’s just like being a leader of any other activity,” said France, who has been playing “League of Legends” since the fifth grade. “There is a lot of stress to it but the reward of watching the team succeed far outweighs that stress.”

 While esports may seem unusual to a society conditioned to see sports as synonymous with athletics, it is advantageous in several ways when compared to other sports. Mainly, esports does not require much funding. Participants play from their own devices, negating the need for equipment funding. While there are fees to enter tournaments, the Blue Devils earned free passes as a reward for placing second in the regional summer tournament.

Still, despite their reliance on technology, esports has limitations. The team experienced new barriers from the coronavirus and its impact just like other sports. Since the team members are a mixture of both in-person and Duval HomeRoom students, and after-school club meetings are prohibited, they have suffered difficulties with communication and organization.

“This might seem crazy, but staying at home honestly did not help us,” said France. “You would think with having to stay at home things would be easier for us since we’re playing online, but at the same time there’s a lack of synergy from being in the same room as people.”

Despite complications caused by the pandemic, the team found new solutions during the NASEF tournament last year. Since the team could not meet on campus, they met at a third party location to play some of their matches and they had to compete in the championships from their homes, limiting their ability to interact as a team. Still, the team found ways to support each other throughout the competition through online means.

“I would say that one of the more fun things for me, and I think it was for the team, was that for the state championship we had something like 180 people watching our game,” said France. “Most of them were from Stanton. Just seeing them typing different messages and chants in the chat was really fun between games.”

The tournaments, held over a series of several weeks, were streamed on Twitch, a game streaming platform, by A-team captain Cody Zheng. Some of the matches were also streamed by the tournament organizers, who provided commentary resembling that of a professional match. Viewers from both the team and Stanton were able to watch the Blue Devils team win the Florida bracket and place nationally in the top ten.

The team completed their regular season with both the A and B-teams emerging undefeated. Currently, the team is participating in the PlayVS competition and both teams are ranked in the top five regionally. 

“As for A-team, our goal is to win it all,” said Zheng.

The Blue Devil’s esports team has grown rapidly since its creation and plans to continue building on its success. The accomplishments of the team mirror the growth of the sport and they hope to incorporate other games such as “Valorant” and “Super Smash Bros” into their play in the future. Through their continued successes, the Blue Devils are changing perceptions of what constitutes a sport.