In the upcoming school year, Potosi High School is starting an Esports Team. What is Esports you ask? Well Esports, short for electronic sports, is a sport that is non-physical and is played using video games. An organized team takes the competitive aspect of physical sports, into non-physical sports, on video games instead, and they compete in tournaments against other schools/teams.

A local school, Mineral Area College, was quick to get into Esports and has acquired a pretty good reputation in the industry. The current games that they have to offer are Rocket League, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Call of Duty Warzone, and Fortnite. They are also looking forward to adding Overwatch 2, Halo Infinite, Valorant, and Mario Kart in the near future.

Students hoping to play Esports for Potosi will choose whether they want to play Rocket League, Overwatch, or Apex Legends as their one computer game. They will also have several Nintendo Switches for the other games they will be playing, such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Depending on which game the players choose, teams can range anywhere from 3 players with 2 subs to 5 players with up to 5 subs. 

After deciding which game they will play, the future coaches will host tryouts and will pick a team captain. Practices will most likely be 3 days a week after school from 3 pm to 5 pm.

Mr. Fulton, one of the people asked the school board to offer esports, said, “Probably sometime in May, we will have a meeting during Trojan Time to talk about what games we will play.

Jaren Wilkerson, a Junior at Potosi High School, said, “I’m excited to tryout for Esports next year, I’m hoping that we will play Apex Legends because I like that game and it would be fun to play at our school.”

We want to give a big thank you to Mr. Odell Jackson, Mr. Fulton, and Mr. Micke for coming up with this idea, researching it, and contributing so much to this program.