A new extra-curricular activity with Greene County High School just finished its first year.
Kyle Kinne is one of the coaches for Esports and says over 30 students completed at least one of the three seasons, including fall, winter and spring. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio he originally wanted to start the new video gaming sport because he wanted to give more students an opportunity to be engaged in sport activities. He points out another huge improvement he saw over the course of the inaugural year.
“It’s been a huge learning curve is that you can be the best player, it’s just like basketball, you could be the best player, but if you’re not working as a team, you’re not doing well. And so how you communicate and all that stuff has just been wonderful.”
Kinne talks about how Esports brought out his football coach mentality.
“We watch game film of the other team, I know their rosters, sometimes I’ll even throw their real names out, who they like to play as their characters, and who you can pretty much pick on – their least best player – that we can get more points on, and stuff like that, and how I want things called out. So every game that we do we actually present differently
Kinne says they took a group of kids to a national tournament in Des Moines and there’s discussions about starting an Esports program in middle school to draw even more interest. Kiine is excited about the possibilities of the students competing at the collegiate level. He says he’s been contacted by six colleges looking for high school seniors to recruit. Kinne gave an example of two Belmond-Klemme High School students who are going to Waldorf College in the fall on Esports scholarships of $15,000 per year for the next four years.
Kinne adds next year the students will have their own jerseys, sponsored by TechZone and Jefferson Telecom, along with possibly having students commentate during a game so that audience members have a better idea of how the game is played.
The spring season wrapped up with a seventh place finish for the Rams in the playoffs.