Generation Esports’ Post

Transcript

High school esports has become most of my life really. It gives me something to push for and work like continue continuously work on. It's just, it's everything to me, really. We started our program back during COVID so kids couldn't interact with each other in a normal way. So they were playing from home. It was a little bit of a normalcy and in a time that was not normal at all for anybody, including adults, right? And since then, the program has grown. We had over 300 kids try out this year. I've got a program that. Consists of about 130 and they form friendships that they wouldn't have had otherwise. You know, I love competition, I love winning, but I also really like what it does for them as people. These kids have been able to keep up with their grades, have a social connection that they possibly wouldn't have had depending on other clubs or sports. This is their sport. They're able to show it gain very great qualities of being able to be up on stage to be able to compete as well as gain friendships that they would probably have for the rest of their lives. We started our program. Back in 2013, and since then, I've got a chance to meet hundreds of students who have found each other friendships and opportunities through gaming and esports. I've been able to start an academic course where video games and esports are now part of what I teach. It has certainly been for me, the opportunity to take something already love doing, which is teaching, and something else I already love doing, which is gaming and esports, and put those things together. And that is a recipe for magic, It really has been. Is an amazing way to connect with your students. I'm a gamer myself. So if you have that opportunity, you'll be able to bring this gigantic world to everybody. It added a whole new dimension to my job at Hebron High School. Another thing to be just exceptionally excited for. And of course, connecting me to students that I wouldn't have met in my chemistry classroom because, you know, we're, we're attracting a totally different, you know, kind of kid Teaching is all about connecting. As many kids as you can and it's cool that esports is a totally unique take on that. There are definitely kids that this is their first or their only extracurricular activity. And so it's been really nice for them to find a place in the school. Like if it weren't for E sports, they wouldn't be interested, they wouldn't be engaged. And because of esports, they're excited to come to school every day. They're excited to you know, be at the school because they have a place, they have people in a community that will support them. You think you. Impact these kids as much as you do, but in the end for me especially, like they've impacted me just as much, if not more so as I, as people are telling me that I'm changing their lives, they're changing mine too. This is going to sound kind of crazy because I have kids and obviously my children are my purpose, but without getting too emotional that these kids are also my purpose, It's just it's been really special to be able to, you know, hopefully be a mentor to some of the kids. I've had kids at Romeo. Letter at the end of the year they were like, hey, you're like a second dad so and it's just like other sports where we're teaching our students a lot of skills like how to communicate well with each other, how to be disciplined, how to be responsible. But it's got one major difference outside of traditional sports in that sometimes stereotypically are kids that are gamers my keep to themselves. They might not have many friends. They might not look at themselves as very remarkable and this gives them an opportunity. To find within themselves away to be remarkable. They I've had kids that are now, you know, playing esports and they're proud of who they are, they're proud of what they've done and that alone has been something that we could have done without our E sports program.