This year Porter High School has formed a new club, the E-sports club. This group is a great opportunity for students to turn their love of video games into a great way to earn scholarship money when they win a competition. In order to join, you must sign up or stop by E104.

¨I think it is a great opportunity to have a really good goal, instead of casual playing,  and to be able to try to work together as a team,” says Mrs. Dowdy, the E-sports club sponsor.

E-sports is a club in which students compete in tournaments by playing video games. Students are also able to learn about streaming and take leadership roles. The club teams who win tournaments and are able to compete in nationals, get a chance to win college scholarship money.

“I’m excited about it because I think that it is fun to  game but there is also a lot of work that goes into it too if you actually are going to win,” said Mrs. Dowdy.

Club meetings are every Monday either before or after school. During meetings, members can discuss club matters, organize team members, organize practice sessions, and queue time for tournaments.  Members are also welcome to practice different game strategies in Mrs. Dowdy’s room E104 every morning.

This club offer opportunities for students to get involved in something extracurricular and help them gain confidence.

“I think it is a really fun way to new friends a just share experience with different people, socializing with others and building new relationships,” says Michael Robbins, member of E-Sports.

This year E-sports members will compete in Triton tournaments and in the high school E-sports league national competition.

In order for members to compete in a game, they must have access to the video game. There are free games available that students can compete with and don’t have to pay for. There are also games where the players need to purchase the game in order to compete with it. The club also has computers for members to use if  one isn’t available for them.

“It is a good option for some students because they can get involved with it and possibly win scholarships and not have to pay anything. If they don’t have a computer or laptop, they just have to come on their day and time and schedule a slot; if there is an open slot they can just borrow that computer,” said Mrs. Dowdy.

In competition, members are able to compete in solo games and in team games. If students who join don’t have a team they are able to join teams that are already in the club that don’t have a complete team for a specific game. Students are able to join one team per game, so students are able to compete in more than one game.

For the Triton Tournaments, every month there are four different games where students can compete in and earn metals.

For Nationals there are two seasons that are eight weeks long and players play one game per week where they can pick the day and time and they are matched with other teams that are competing from other places and they compete and record the scores. This year PHS is competing against 3500 schools that are in the competitions so far. In each season there will be 12 games that students can compete in and the top four teams of each game would advance to nationals. In total, there would be 48 teams from each of the two majors, the fall, which starts on September 28th, and spring that started in January, that would go to nationals that would be located in Arlington, Tx, and the E-sports arena.

“It doesn’t really cost anything, well for my game it didn’t really cost anything. It is something I already do I just do it at specific times. Hopefully, if we win (his team) we will get to travel and compete, other than that it is fun and cool,” said Marcos Acosta, E-Sports member.

E-sports club was created when students won a Samsung competition last year and were able to start the E-sport club with the money they earned from the competition.

“Last year we worked on a project called gen bridge and that is what started to fund this and I thought it would be pretty great for me to join,” said Robbins.

Games that students can compete with-https://www.highschoolesportsleague.com/game-summaries

For more information-https://www.highschoolesportsleague.com/

For team sign up-https://app.generationesports.com/team/14258/invite/7c18bbc56452577986f5288969263696c5fb4fbf