October 2, 2022
“I was a football player for four years, in my eyes. Esports is no different from any traditional sport, and I think we should be referred to as a sports team just like anybody else you call on the football team. They are the football team, we are the esports team. We have players, coaches, and directors just like traditional sports teams. Instead of throwing pads on and running a football down one hundred yards, I sit in that chair and play video games for six hours.”
This is a quote from senior Brody McLemore when asked about what the esports team should be referred to. Brady is currently not only an athlete on the team but also the director of broadcasting and social media coordinator.
With this program entering its third year, there has already been extreme growth. The program has grown from five to over 60 members in three years. “Esports started when it was just five of us. We played a charity tournament for the University of Northern Iowa for League of Legends. We weren’t even in one of the three rooms we have now. We had to use a conference room in the forum. We just had five towers which we bought two weeks beforehand. It was just the five of us sitting there for a few hours. To now see we have 63 athletes on the team three years later is amazing growth.”
This past summer, the esports team added two additional rooms to make three rooms in total. This expansion was needed because of the huge growth in the past year. Director of Esports and Intramurals Trevor Berneking has some expectations for the team moving forward. “If we continue to grow, the max number of students we can hold with of spaces is around 90-100 students. However, we would have to get up to at least 40 to 50 PCs to manage that many students.”
With this being said, Trevor and Brody both do not want esports to be looked at as a club. Trevor had this to say about the team: “I don’t consider us a club. We are a varsity sport like football or baseball. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be recruiting. It’s more than just coming in and playing the game. It’s coming to team building, community service, fundraisers, and doing well in the classroom. It’s all the stuff that traditional sports team does.”
Getting to the next level of competition is also very important to Trevor when looking to the future of the program. Trevor looks forward to the next few recruiting classes as he looks to bring in more and more talent to the team.
If you want to go support the esports team, check them out on Instagram and Twitter @bvuesports. To see them live in action, watch them on YouTube and Twitch at the same social media handle. Brody will be playing League of Legends this year and looks forward to adding another conference title to BVU.