New club introduces Esports team

Justice LaMaster | Staff Writer

The newest club at Scottsburg High School is taking sports to a new level.

Esports is a way to play video games competitively in an organized setting. Players take the skills they have and put them up against other competitive players.

According to Director of Esports Shawna Slaton, last year, several students approached her asking why the school did not offer Esports.

“[I] went to two sessions and investigated it through a conference I was attending and started to work on the process. From there, I had to ask for approval and did a call-out form to see who was interested in it,” Slaton said.

Slaton said Scottsburg’s Esports team had a group of games they had to choose to play based on what Indiana High School Esports Network offered, the equipment the school had, and what each student was interested in.

Once they picked the games, the club was split into three different teams: the Rocket League team, the Smash Brothers team, and the Forza Racing team.

“I participate in the Smash Bros. team, where I’m ranked in the top three. I joined Esports as I’ve had a huge interest in it since freshman year,” Carson Bowen (11) said.

Each team participates at different times and different days. The Smash Brothers team participates at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, the Rocket League team participates in matches at 4:30 p.m., on Wednesdays and the Forza Racing team participates in a weekly racing challenge provided by ISHEN.

Students are welcome to come and watch each of these events take place.

Although Braxton Soloe never pictured Esports coming into his life, he is now the Esports coach for Scottsburg High School. His job as their coach is to motivate the teams and to make sure that the players utilize their skills and abilities to their full potential.

“I’ve played sports like basketball and tennis my whole life competitively. Video games were just played on the side in my free time. Esports was never really in the picture,” Soloe said.

Now, Soloe is very excited to be a part of the Esports experience at SHS.

“Now, you are able to play video games while still having that competitive nature from your typical sports, and that’s what I love about it. Esports is becoming more mainstream every day, and it’s only going to get bigger,” Soloe said.