After gaining approval from the Alabama High School Athletic Association in 2018, Vinemont High School teacher James Brown said that he was approached by a group of students wishing to start an esports official team.
"From the beginning it was mostly all of the students' doing. I told them I would be the sponsor, but they did it all from raising money, to building the first computers," Brown says.
Senior Jayden Hilton is the only remaining member of the original team. Having competed for the previous four years, Hilton says while esports is now recognized alongside traditional sports, the landscape in which teams compete varies drastically.
"There aren't any divisions for one. We play teams no matter how big or small the school is. That, and they come out with new games every year, so we may have to learn a completely different game between seasons," Hilton said.
Good Hope High School team sponsor Greg Thomas said that despite this being his first semester at the school, he is seeing his students benefit from being on the team.
"I would see some of these kids in the hall or in class before, and now when I look at them their entire disposition has changed. Now that they have something at the school that belongs to them, it feels like a place they belong," said Thomas.
Connie Hilton, Jayden's mother and current sponsor, describes seeing similar results at Vinemont.
"Before, they may have been distracted or disinterested. But after joining the team, they are engaging in class and growing and gaining interest in school. Not only in computer class, but across the board. This is giving them a place to belong they didn't know existed before," Hilton said.
Due to rising popularity, many universities have begun offering scholarships for the sport. While the National Association of Collegiate esports reports that the majority of scholarships range from $500 to $8000 per year, Harrisburg University became the first of the organizations 151 schools to offer a full scholarship in 2018.
"When it comes to their futures the chances for them to go on to compete at a high level is much higher than traditional sports like basketball or football. That, and with so many careers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field, they are learning skills that they can build a career out of," Thomas said.
Good Hope team member Sean Doyle says that playing video games at school was "weird at first" his teammate Avery Miller describes his time on the team as a positive one.
"It has helped us make new friends and relationships that we probably wouldn't have otherwise."
©2022 The Cullman Times (Cullman, Ala.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
