'Great great place to make new friends and have a lot of fun': McKinley esports growing

Normally when the bell rings, students can't wait to rush out of school for the day. That's not the case on the upper floor of the McKinley High School. One classroom in particular is packed with students. Every seat is filled as a few more mingle around waiting for a spot to open up.

Welcome to where the increasingly popular McKinley esports team meets. The buzz around the program is palpable.

"We have 35 active players now," McKinley esports head coach Tyler Smith said recently. "We actually added a new player today. We seem to pick up a new player every week or two. The team has also started a Discord server and there are around 80 students participating in that. The notifications about the conversations going on in that are constant. We have our playbook available in that server and there are a lot of ways like that for students to interact with the program."

As the team has grown, so has the need for equipment. McKinley has made an effort to keep up with the growing demand.

"We've upgraded our keyboards and our mouses," Smith said. "We've also gotten some monitors that have a higher refresh rate on them. We moved the old monitors over and the district purchased some Xboxes to add more stations. We're looking at ways to grow further."

McKinley certainly has enough players to fill any additional seats that become available. The program has attracted students from a wide variety of backgrounds. That includes Isaiah Boles. A junior who is active in the band, too, Boles is garnering scholarship interest from the University of Akron esports program.

"When I joined the team, getting a scholarship or having an opportunity to play in college wasn't even on my mind," Boles said. "I started because I really enjoyed playing games for the challenge. A lot of the things we play are easy to pick up but hard to master and that really drew me in."

Boles was recruited into the program by senior John Noel. Noel was one of the original members of the esports program at McKinley.

"The original members tried a lot of things to help grow the program," Noel said. "That included asking friends like Isaiah to play, asking people to join the Discord server and hanging up fliers. The program is a great place to make new friends and have a lot of fun."

Noel is unsure if he will continue playing esports in college. He is headed to the University of Chicago to pursue his college degree.

Those flyers and that outreach caught the attention of McKinley students like junior Daniel Diaz. Diaz was not active in any school programs prior to joining the esports team.

"It's just such a fun environment," Diaz said. "The people are nice and everybody is laid back. When you come in here, you always hear a lot of screaming and laughter. It's a great place to make new friends. It's also been nice to see how we have grown in the year since I have been here. The team wasn't nearly as big last year."

It's easy to chart the progress of the team and the various games the Bulldogs compete in during the week. McKinley has started a Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/mckinley_esports) that streams its competitions. The Bulldogs also hope to find other ways to draw further attention to the program.

"We're always looking at positive ways to bring attention to the program," Smith said. "We are hoping to host a LAN tournament where we could play in person against other schools in the area. We also have a dream of hosting a LAN tournament downtown at Centennial Plaza."

The games of the McKinley esports team explained

There are several games the McKinley esports team competes in over the course of a normal week. The team practices daily and usually has one competition a week against another school.

The Repository had a chance to talk about each of the games with Smith, the head coach, and participants on the team. Here is everything you need to know about the top games featured in McKinley esports competitions.

Valorant

Valorant is one of the largest free-to-play first-person shooters in the world. The game is played between two teams of five. One team is tasked with attacking an objective while one team needs to defend it. Players start with a standard loadout but can earn in-game currency by playing well which can be spent on new weapons for the round. Teams often play a series of matches to determine the overall winner. The game emphasizes teamwork and coordination.

"The tactics are what drew me to the game," McKinley junior Daniel Diaz said. "You really have to plan out who is going to be doing what over the course of the round. You have to synch up your ability and you have to have good timing. It's a lot of fun."

The moment-to-moment gameplay provides several intense encounters and encourages active communication between players during rounds.

"You will hear a lot of yelling back and forth during rounds," Diaz said. "We have a playbook for certain situations so you will see us calling our plays and responsibilities. It's a really competitive environment."

Rocket League

Rocket League is one of the most popular esports games in the world. It's easy to see why. The game is free to play and is best described as essentially soccer with remote control cars. A team of two to three players will each control a car and try to score goals over a timed round against a team of equal size. Players move the ball by hitting it with their cars. Each car is equipped with a "boost" that allows for a quick burst of speed that can be used to jump into the air to perform advanced tricks. Players are placed into brackets that designate their skill level for others to see.

"I was basically in the silver division when I started," Boles said. "I wasn't very good. I'm now pushing my way into the diamond division after playing on the team the last couple of years."

The skills displayed by Boles have caught the eye of the Rocket League team from the University of Akron. A scholarship to play for the Zips is possible for Boles.

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"That was something that I never considered when I joined the team," Boles said. "I was just here because I liked the people and I liked playing the game for the challenge. It's a game that is easy to pick up but hard to master. I just always wanted to keep competing, keep learning and keep getting better."

Fortnite

Arguably the largest game in the world in the "battle royale" genre of video games. Battle royale games feature a set number of players (either alone or in squads of two to four players in Fortnite) competing to be the last individual or team standing. Players start with limited equipment and must "loot" better items from the environment to secure upgrades.

Fortnite is competed in the third-person perspective and can feature "build" modes or "zero build" modes. "Build" modes allow players to break down materials and use them to make structures to give themselves the advantage in a conflict. That element is entirely removed in "zero build" mode.

A "storm" forms after players land and begins to constrict the playable area on the map in Fortnite. The storm area is essentially an out of bounds area that damages players who stand in it. The playable area on the map constricts over the course of the game and will continue to restrict until just one individual or squad is left standing. Fortnite has excelled at acquiring a large variety of costumes players can wear from properties such as Marvel, Star Wars, DC Comics, Rick and Morty and many more.

"Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world," said Smith, McKinley's coach. "Like many of the games we play, it also happens to be free to play. The fact that there is no sort of financial commitment to play the game or practice draws in a lot of students."

Reach Cliff at cliff.hickman@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @chickmanREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: McKinley esports drawing students to competitive video games