Buzzing and blasting sounds come from ten different computers. A dozen people sitting down tranced into their online world of gaming. They are so hypnotized and concentrated there could be a fire and they wouldn’t know. They game to win and compete. This is eSports.

High school History teacher, and eSports leader, Garrit Pickelmann shared what eSports is.

“eSports is organized competitive gaming,” Pickelmann said.

Pickelmann says that eSports is a way for students to join a team and to have fun.

The CAA had just added eSports and they were having a conference. Pickelmann was sold after the convention and put out feelers to see if anybody was interested. He said there was quite a bit. The sport started in October.  There are two teams and five players play at a time. They have their starting lineup of the three subs. There are 13 players in total.

Pickelmann shared some of the benefits he found that eSports has.

“Incorporates teamwork, also gets the benefits of being part of a team, and 75 percent of students who play eSports had never played an organized sport so it gets students involved,” Pickelmann said

The games are run through Play Versus, which is the company that organizes everything. They play seven schools this season. Every Tuesday there is a game and each match consists of two games. There is practice every Thursday and Friday.

Pickelmann shared what Esport practices look like.

“A lot of it is just direct competition between the two teams, they invite each other to custom matches and they play against each other,” Pickelmann said

They only play one game through the CAA which is the League of Legends. Pickelman did say that they were looking into adding more games such as Rocket League and Fortnite.

There are a lot of special things about eSports. Sophomore Tyson Lewis, a player, shared what he thinks is special about eSports.

“The special thing about eSports is that it is a new type of sport and it’s cool how gaming can be a sport now,” Lewis said.

Another player, sophomore Aaron Selvey stated what he felt was special about eSports.

“The special thing about eSports is getting to play games with friends and that the competition is always fun,” Selvey said.

eSports is new to the school and to the CAA, but it has really grown and taken off in such little time.