Joplin hosts first Eagles L'air esports tournament

Jan. 30—A budding esports program at Joplin High School is taking the stereotype of kids wasting time playing video games and turning it into a team-building activity offering possible scholarships.

The Joplin High School Esports Eagles held their first fundraising tournament, dubbed Eagles L'Air, on Saturday at Kaminsky Gym.

Tournament organizer and sophomore Parker Williamson said about 150 participants were expected at the event, which he said was to raise money to help pay for Joplin team members who advance to regional and state esports competitions.

"It's very likely our regional finals will probably be somewhere like Springfield, so we'll have to raise a bit of money to get there," Williamson said. "That'll be a bit of a travel tournament and it probably means an overnight stay, so that's a decent chunk of money. After that, we'll have to go to state if we make it past regionals, and we want to make sure that if our players are good enough to go to state that they have the opportunity to go."

The tournament was open to high school, college and even professional competitors in the Nintendo game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, one of the top-grossing esports games.

The money raised was split between prizes for competitors and the JHS esports team.

Heather Pugh, Williamson's mother and president of the Joplin Esports Booster Club, said the tournament brought in players from across the country.

"We have people from South Dakota and Texas, South Carolina, all over, in addition to Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas," Pugh said. "The 20th-ranked player in the world, ApolloKage, is here. I follow ApolloKage a lot, and it means everything to these kids to know there's a professional athlete here in their building playing with them. But not only that, if you have ever followed him, he has the best athletic mentality. He's a very positive person. He works very hard, and I feel like he's probably the best role model at the professional level for our kids."

Amy Harris, a computer science teacher at the Hart Career Center in Mexico, Missouri, brought a team to Joplin to compete in the tournament.

She helped start one of the first esports high school teams in Missouri and is on the board of directors of the Missouri Scholastic Esports Federation, the governing body for esports competition at Missouri high schools.

'Can we start competing?'

"It started with people playing, and it started branching into schools," Harris said. "We started in 2015-16 school year. We started with a national organization, but as we've grown, it's started to be more academic. With our program, my kids said, 'Hey, we've got these computers for video game design class. Can we start competing?' I said sure, and it has grown from there for us as the scene has grown nationally and through the state. Now it's branching into academics; people have esports classes based around careers in the esports industry. It's getting pretty big, scholarships to colleges."

Pugh said she believed the stereotypes when her son asked her if he could start attending regional tournaments two years ago.

"I said, 'I don't have time for this. It's just a video game,' so I was like, let me do some research," Pugh said. "Well, by happenstance I had gone to a conference and they had a segment on esports and so I was like, 'I need to watch this because my kid is interested in it.' I'm going to be honest — I was hooked the moment I was there. They had interviewed children who had failing grades, they had poor attendance, they felt like an outcast in their school and they didn't fit in anywhere. They joined their school's esports program, and all of a sudden they're getting higher test grades, their attendance is going up, they're making friends and they fit in. There's finally a place for them, and I think that's what moved me the most."

Harris said MoSEF offers play in several game titles; the big ones are Smash Bros. Ultimate and League of Legends.

"It has to be something that you can track the competition, where you can have scores and people can win," Harris said. "We don't play anything that's rated higher than T for teen, we don't play anything that's violent or rated M. We go where the kids go. If the kids like it and it's feasible to play it, we play it. and it's also driven by what colleges are offering scholarships for."

Shelby McAfee, of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, brought her son, Dalton McAfee, and one other player from John Brown University to Joplin's tournament.

She said her son has been playing video games for years and even built his own computer gaming system. She said she was initially concerned about him getting on the internet and connecting with people who might want to harm him.

"I think that maybe at a certain age it was best for him, but I wouldn't have done this when he was younger just because it opens him up to anything online," McAfee said. "He has Asperger's, and it's a great way for him to socialize. In school, he had a hard time connecting with other people, socializing and stuff, but now in college they have this program to where they have esports and he's finally been able to find friends and a peer group that he can hang out with, which is really helping his self-esteem."

Pugh said the team is hoping to make this tournament a regular event and possibly host it twice a year.

"We had a really good outpouring of support from our community and a lot of people are interested," she said. "One thing I love about esports is we're not limited on who can be an esports player. If you're in a wheelchair, come play esports. Anyone can pick up a controller and play; not everyone can run in a football game. So our ability to reach more players is vast. It's a group of kids you normally wouldn't see in a traditional high school sport, but you're just reaching a whole group of kids that need it. They probably need it the most."