By Destiny C. Jurado 21’
As of November 21, 2019, Mount Saint Joseph has created an E-sports (Electronic Sports) team. E-sports are a competitive type of sport where students get together and compete in multiplayer video games. A couple of the games that E-sport teams play are League of Legends, Overwatch, and Fortnite. League of Legends is a fast-paced RTS (Real-time strategy) game in which the players use their champions to fight in battlefields, head-to-head, against another team. For a team to win, they must defeat the other team’s Nexus, which is the core of each team’s base. The goal of League of Legends is similar to capture the flag and chess.
Some people believe that E-Sports isn’t a real Sport and often think negatively of it, but that is not the case. E-Sports has many amazing lessons and benefits for the players. Those benefits are that it provides inclusion in communities, can help students to be successful in the future, and even teaches students valuable skills. A lot of those valuable skills can be learned the same as if a student was playing football, baseball, softball, or tennis. Those abilities are being able to work with others, learning social skills, strategic planning and thinking, managing failure and success, travel skills, and time management. E-Sports also expands college and career opportunities because students can go into graphic design, game designing, and even STEM employment using their experience in E-Sports.
The E-sports team has started practicing and we hope to compete against other schools. It will be a great opportunity for us to be included in other communities, learn how to think and plan strategically, and help guide us in the future in college or careers. In the spring, we will be opening slots for new team members.