Last year, Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall started offering Esports as part of their athletics department, making it the 19th collegiate sport offered at SMSU.
It's not your standard sporting arena and just down the hall, a hurried student might not know the competition taking place in room ST 266.
2021/2022 is the second school year that Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall has rostered an esports team, which has competitive and organized video gaming. Spencer Louwagie is the team's coach. "I peaked diamond four in League of Legends."
There are nine ranking levels in League of Legends and diamond is the sixth highest. Three years ago, Louwagie said that he attended an esports focused workshop at SMSU. The school wanted to see if this was something they should be pursuing.
"So they asked the crowd, if anybody knew anything about esport to kick things off and I was just the only one that raised my hand," Louwagie said. "They gave me the mic and I was doing an impromptu presentation on esports. As a member of the IT team here at SMSU, I was going to be involved in helping figure out what they would need."
Louwagie said that the president of SMSU, Kumara Jayasuriya, has been very supportive of the program. "He has kids that are about that age that really got into esports," Louwagie said.
"I like a Rocket League to watch," said President Jayasuriya. "Rocket League is the game where they play soccer in cars. I have played Rocket League and I'm terrible at it, so my children don't want to partner with me," joked President Jayasuriya. "They actually like to play with me, but they can't win with me because I'm so terrible."
Kumara Jayasuriya has been the president of SMSU since July 1 of 2019. A fact sheet he provided said that as of 2019, there were over 750 esports clubs on college campuses across the country. Additionally, global esports revenues are expected to exceed $1 billion this year, according to Newzoo's 2021 Global Esports & Live Streaming Market Report. President Jayasuriya said that SMSU is the first in the Minnesota state college and university system to have an esports team.
He said that there was no pushback from SMSU's administration. "One thing we wanted to make sure it is financially viable. And we looked at it and said, if we can get so many students, we are okay to move forward."
President Jayasuriya said the school paid $250,000 for the initial start. And while he's been a champion for the esports team, he recognizes the balance required, when it comes to screen time. "These students are going to play computer games, whether it's at the school or at home, they are going to play. So we thought if we give them organized way to do this," he said. "In fact, Spencer always tell them to take a break and ... walk around and things like that. When they play at home, they might not do that."
The students said they make a point of going to the gym on campus to exercise regularly. Esports offers opportunities beyond gaming, like computer science, marketing, social media and IT. "It's a billion dollar business. I'm sure business students will be interested in getting into that aspect of esports as well," said President Jayasuriya. "Another thing is esports from the beginning, had this cultural component to it because it's an international sport."
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Coach Louwagie said that one of the coolest aspects of the program is that there's a diverse group of majors involved.
Kennedy Kucera said she was looking at SMSU first for its biology program. "Then I did a tour here and I heard [about] esports here and I was like, 'that's a really cool opportunity,' because I already gamed and there were multiple opportunities and the equipment here is so high tech," she said.
Kucera from Watertown, South Dakota is on SMSU's Valorant A squad. "And I am currently platinum," she said. Platinum is level five out of eight in the Valorant and ranking system.
Kucera is also a commentator for the Valorant B squad. "So I basically break it down play-by-play, explain what's happening and talk about what should have happened or what they did well," she said. Kucera said that she's been interested in commentating professionally. "I would really actually love to do that, long-term. Especially being how few women are in gaming. How that could actually be a possibility."
The esports program, which is part of the athletics department, has 41 students representing about 11 different games. "We have our esports team, but really all those teams are broken down into separate teams within a team" explained coach Louwagie. "So we have esports as a whole and then you have your League of Legends team, your Rocket League team, your CS: GO team, your Valorant team. And within that, we have team captains for each of those teams."
Zander Wysong from Hills, Minnesota is the captain of the Valorant A squad. He's level diamond which is one level above platinum. He said they practice two times a week, Tuesdays are more of a strategy day, "where Spencer actually runs us through some strategies that he has. And then Sunday practices is where we just play the A team and the B team we'll mix each other up and then just play a five on five game just to get more reps in," he said.
Wysong is also the IGL or "in game leader." "I don't tell people exactly what to do, but if we're like in a situation, I'll be the one to say, 'let's go this way,'" explained Wysong. "I think a couple steps ahead like, if this guys there, they're probably gonna do this and I think that's one quality, a good IGL should have been able to see, predict."
The goal of President Jayasuriya is to have the esports team move games out of ST 266 and play on the basketball court, but Louwagie admits that's a few years away. For right now, he's happy with providing a space for more people to experience team sports on campus.
"I think it's a really important to give every student their own opportunity to shine in college. So this is just another way of allowing students who might not be able to shine a different way, a way to express themselves," he said.
